


Phantasy Star: Exodus

by Mysterie



Category: Phantasy Star Online 2
Genre: Alternate Universes, Depression, First person view, Gen, Loneliness, Tragedy, War, a promise, lost person, many souls/minds in one body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 47,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28128276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysterie/pseuds/Mysterie
Summary: Sometimes when you wake up, it's not to a strange place, but to a place you know and yet is still strange to you because it's a world you've thought wasn't real... Turns out, it is. It's in a completely different dimension...
Relationships: Kaori & Alma, Kaori & Matoi, Kaori & Xiao, Kaori & Xiera
Kudos: 1





	1. Awakening

"Are you okay?" I knew that soft spoken, female voice. I opened my eyes, staring up into the familiar face of a complete stranger! I shot up.

"Kaori, what's wrong? Are you okay?" What? Kaori? No, my name was... I put a hand to my head, it was pounding and ached something fierce. I closed my eyes only to find myself in a grey area. Five more familiar strangers greeted me.... 

“They don’t look sick to me.” A gruff voice made me wince, I knew who all of these strangers were. I knew them without truly knowing who they were.

“What’s with that expression? Surely your used to this chaos by now, after all we’ve been through.” The smooth voice caught my attention, I glanced his way, in black and blue armor, holding a book as usual, with a face one could scarcely forget for it was a lovely visage of a young man with silvery grey hair but fringed with purple markings at the tips that were the familiar leftovers of being a Dark Falz as well as having red eyes. His armor was black and red that looked almost like it was more a business suit than actual armor in its style. This was Luther, also known as The Loser. 

"Maybe they have finally become like us!" A child's voice rang out, followed by another, that was more female.

"Yes, like us." I glanced over at the two children..... Flo and Fluer, dressed in black with light lavender hints to their silvery white hair, their hair was long and pulled back into a ponytail in one section while the rest was cut short. Each one had a single maroon and black hair clip, one on the right and one wore it on the left; their eyes a soft red color. Their armor was more like robes in appearance and had a maroon pattern at the collar. It was almost impossible to tell them apart.... they had been Gemini the Duplicate.

"That can't be right and why were you so careless?!" My attention was drawn to the slender female in black and red with shorter hair and young features of a young adult. Her hands on her hips, she had red and silver clips in her blonde hair that had the same tinted to its tips that Lither's did but hers were pink and the only red on her was actually on the boots she wore that went high up her thighs as well as the inside of her half skirt that acted sort of like a cape... or maybe it was a jacket? It was hard to tell. This was Margareta, or had been Apprentice at one point... The gruff voice from earlier was Gettemhult. Wearing black armor, he was built like he only spent his time lifting weights and had a dark shade of silver hair that was short and spiked back. He had a scar that ran from above his left eye to below his right, his eyes were brown but as unforgiving as ever. He’d never been a very nice individual in terms of personality, but he’d been a good operative until he’d gone off the deep end... which had led to him releasing Elder and becoming a Dark Falz.

“Idiot! If you go we go! Don’t forget that!” 

“They seem different, something has changed.” Flo said.

“Yes, something has changed, they are not the same.” Fluer echoed.

“Regardless, pull yourself together. We can’t have them thinkin’ you’ve gone off the deep end.” Gettemhult said gruffly. I look over at him and nod. I was almost panicking but I knew I couldn’t afford to. I knew where I was... I was an anime troupe! Well... I could figure this out later. Right now... I needed to do damage control.

I forced myself to focus on my physical body and open my eyes... at least that’s how I had always imagined how this worked. I was a bit relieved that it seemed to as I looked up at two pairs of concerned faces. The soft red eyes and white hair was supposed to be a friend, Matoi. I tilted my head slightly to one side as I met her worried gaze.

“I’m sorry that I made you worry, but I’m okay now. I think I just had a bad dream or something and so I didn’t feel like myself when I came to. Though, I feel like I’ve forgotten something... I don’t remember what happened last.”

“That’s normal.” Another voice said and I turned towards it. I wasn’t quite as familiar with this voice, but I knew the face as I’d seen her just as often; if the sapphire eyes and burnt auburn hair didn’t give her away the white and red nurse uniform sure did. Filia was one of the nurses on the ARKS ship that worked in the Medical Bay and was one of the most seen nurses about. I glanced about, yup, I was in the Medical Bay alright. 

“Can someone tell me what happened?” Matoi and Filia exchanged glances before Matoi spoke up.

“Well, we were on a mission to save Xiao.” That was right... I remembered that much... but, I wasn’t _there_ per say... 

“You appeared in time to help us fight off Varuna, but he hit you pretty hard and you hit a wall... but... you didn’t get back up like you normally do and... I was scared for you...” 

“Hey, I’m okay Matoi. It seems like everything went well... didn’t it? I mean, we’re here... and Xiao is back, right?” 

“Yes.” She seemed relieved, nodding. 

“Um, are you sure you’re alright? You look troubled.” I nodded then looked over at Filia.

“If you don’t mind, can I have a private conversation with Matoi for an hour or so?”  
  


“Of course, I’ve already done the normal checks. You’re good to go when you like.” 

“Thanks.” She nodded and left the room. 

“What is this about?” I shifted to dangle my legs over the side of the bed. I still hadn’t seen my reflection yet, but I didn’t need to know I didn’t look anything like myself. 

“Do you remember when we first met Hitsugi?” I asked.

“Yeah, I remember.” 

“Do you recall how timid she was at first, how she talked about the world being a game on Earth? How she was from a different dimension?” 

“I do recall her saying something about that, although I still can’t really wrap my head around it.” I nodded.

“The truth is... it’s sort of the same with me.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean that I’m not Kaori. I’m not sure what happened to Kaori honestly, but I’ve somehow taken her place... maybe in time it will be revealed to me... but, like Hitsugi... and like Alma. This body isn’t mine and my name isn’t Kaori. Like Hitsugi, for me... this world was just a game and Kaori was my avatar. So... I know a lot of lore and what not and I’ve been with you with the ups and downs, just not.... Not so literally.” 

“I ... think I understand.” Matoi seemed troubled over this and I didn’t blame her.

“Do you think they’ll come back?” 

“I don’t know. I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before.” 

“Do you remember what you were doing when it happened? The switch, I mean... I mean, obviously they had to go somewhere so... wouldn’t they have ended up in your body? It just seems logical... right?”

“It does and I wish I had an answer for you. I don’t remember what I was doing, I am not as young as she is though. That much I know.” 

“How old were you then?” 

“Hmm, it’s eluding me... like a lot of things. I hope that in time that I can regain my memory and have more answers for you... until then, it’s probably best to pretend that I am Kaori. We don’t need everyone falling into despair over her disappearance or worrying over it with Shiva looming as a threat.”

“I don’t think we should keep this a secret from everyone though.”

“No... you’re right, there are going to be certain individuals who will notice regardless. I imagine we should talk to Xiao, Xiera and Alma, at the very least. I don’t know if anyone else will notice since I was not very big on having companions around in my missions until I hit a certain level... mostly due to not knowing how to properly play than anything.” 

“Yeah, maybe they will know what to do!” 

“Maybe.” I wasn’t banking on it though. They had dealt with a lot of things, sure, but nothing that was exactly like this. Xiao might have known about Hitsugi, but dealing with someone who was a low operative was one thing... but someone who was literally like the beacon of hope for the entire fleet? Yeah... this was something very few needed to know. Morale would plummet in an instant if something happened. 

So we couldn't just tell anyone about it... ah crap, what about the alliance I had gotten into as well? Was that a factor here or not? Well, that would be something I needed to figure out. I knew only one member of my family played this game... would they notice? Was there even a connection like that or was this different? How much of the actual game was really in this world and... could I ever get back home? What about here... what HAD happened to Kaori? Were they in limbo? Somehow still in me or had they been lost and I was just a replacement? So many questions... I just hope I can get this figured out before others become suspicious. Well, besides the falz group anyway. It didn't much matter if they knew or not... except maybe it would. Would they lend me their strength?

I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out the hard way just yet, but it seemed that Flo and Fleur were already on to me anyway. That meant I needed to confront them. I’d do that after I talked to Xiao and Xiera - which reminded me about Sarah!

“Is Sarah still sleeping?” Matoi nodded.

“Yeah, she seemed pretty wiped out by everything.”

“Let’s go talk to Xiao and Xiera then.” 

“Okay!” She nodded and I got up from the bed and followed Matoi out. It was different, seeing the ship first in first person like this rather than on a screen. The usual music from the game was simply not there. Things weren’t exactly silent as there was the comfortable murmur of conversations going on with various ARKS operatives as we moved from the Medical Bay down a set of steps and towards the winding steps to head up to the bridge. I remember I’d usually sprint everywhere in game, but I didn’t think that I could so without winding myself now... and I’d probably attract too much attention too since no one else was sprinting about. They were walking casually. It seemed that, despite the threat, operatives were as cool headed as one expected video game characters to be mostly. Of course there were the occasional ones who weren’t quite so calm... but no one was freaking out and making scenes over it either.

It was surprising because I knew that this never would happen back home. People would panic and cause scenes and just generally be stupid. As we got near the top of the steps I spotted a Visiphone. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or not. Then the question was... was my market shop still there? After all, in game I’d had a shop that I’d paid real money for, and if it was... how would it work here? Just more questions I guess. I also saw that the streams of what used to just be blurred images was actually readable data that was being looped for all operatives to see. When we got close enough I stopped to read it. It was on the new enemy that I remembered seeing on the Mothership. Matoi noticed me pausing to read and so she stopped too until I resumed walking. Chroto was doing his usual pacing routine, it was also strange to realize I had to identify everyone by appearance now rather than seeing their name above them. It just made more real that this was no longer just a game. The teleportation pad that would take us to the bridge had the pulsating glow I still remembered but at the back was actually a small activation pad that Matoi activated to take us to the bridge.

Xiera was sitting in her usual seat, pouring over from data from what I could tell. I don’t know why someone thought it to be lore that she was based off Admiral Ulku because they honestly didn’t look anything alike. She wasn’t Neuman for one, she also had blue eyes and blonde hair that was put into pigtails on the side except for her bangs, which were swept to the side out of her face and her attire was pink and white, with black leggings and a blue ribbon at her neck much like it was supposed to be a tie. Xiao was looking out into space at the planet that was there. It was a luminescent sea green with a visible inner core that was black and fiery, with patches of hot lava - or was it magma - across its surface. A singular luminescent blue green ring rotated around it. This was my first glimpse of Amduskia from space. The game had rarely given glimpses of what the various planets looked like from space and I imagined that on the planet were draconians going about their lives. 

The lore of this planet, as told by Ro’Kamiz, the supposed elder of the draconians, was that originally Ro’Kamiz was a failed replica of Xion along with its sister planet, the one that now lay in its core. It was Ko’Rela who was not only a friend to ARKS but was also to Ro’Kamiz what Sarah was to Xiao. They were connected in a way I didn’t fully comprehend and the game had never fully explained and likely never would. I wondered how this world filled in such gaps. Yet another question but with likely numerous answers. It was Ko’Riu that Xiao had merged with to be able to exist again outside of Sarah after having taken the blow from Shiva to protect Sarah. I am not certain, but I think that time has made the bond between Xiao and Sarah be more than normal and that, in some way, they loved one another. What sort of love that is, I do not know and do not presume to know.

“Hello you two! What brings you here?” 

“Um... well.” Matoi said, looking at me as we stopped in front of Matoi. Xiao turned. It was odd seeing him in this new form. This was the second time he had changed his appearance. The first time he’d been a kid in a coat with organisms on it and with his hair tied back into a small ponytail, when he’d aged himself up he’d looked like a teenage scientist in a white coat and pants with glasses and his hair was still the same. Now, however, it was different. The coat he had now was stylized to be fashionable, though still white, the pants were still white and he still had those glasses and his usual hair, however he now only wore the coat and a strange pattern was etched onto white skin and even around his left eye. He still seemed to be the same Xiao I remembered, however and greeted us with a smile.

“I trust you are well?” Xiao was looking at me. I nodded.

“Well that’s a relief!” Xiera said with her usual bubbliness.

“Well, that’s not exactly why we’re here... um... well, you tell them.” Matoi looked over at me, she seemed as uncertain as I expected her to be. This kind of thing had never really been her forte. She had never been a character who was good about talking about things except with the player character... or well, in this case, me. Now that I thought about it, Matoi hadn’t shied away from me. I wondered if it would matter to anyone else.

“What’s this about?” Xiao asked.

“I’m not who you think I am.” I began, Xiera looked surprised but didn’t interrupt and Xiao said nothing as I began to explain everything. 

“Wait, so let me get this straight. You’re from another world, outside ours like Hitsugi... and the Kaori we knew was your avatar and now, like Alma used Klariskrays’ body you’re now using Kaori’s?” 

“Yeah that sums it up.” 

“This is troubling.” Xiao said, I nodded in agreement.

“This is the worst time for something like this to happen to you guys. I mean, if I was just a normal operative like Hitsugi it wouldn’t be such a big deal.” 

“But you aren’t!” Xiera said.

“You’re a Guardian!” 

“Exactly.” Xiera seemed disheartened. 

“Matoi and I talked about it and I knew I had to at least tell the two of you... and Alma, but it doesn’t look like she’s around.”

“I think she’s off wandering the ship. I haven’t seen her since after the battle on Omega.” Well that made sense, she wasn’t really in focus anymore since the whole thing with Omega was over now. Her job was mostly over, as she’d been helping us out as much as she could with Omega, but there wasn’t really much she could do about Shiva and her minions. It wasn’t like she could affect the world as much as she had before and now that I thought about it, it made sense that she was taking it easy. She had used a lot of power to help with Omega, so now she was likely tired still from that. I remember learning about the true past... how Shiva was born because the Photoners wanted to lock away the Profound Darkness and to do so they used a vessel that had been created by one of them and took its soul, infusing it only with photons to draw the Profound Darkness to be locked into it. Shiva was, more or less, the true whole form of the Profound Darkness. What had been fought against before was only a small fragment that had escaped.

The only thing that it sought was the destruction of everything... it was the Photoners’ fault this was happening as they had tried so long ago to play god and now this was the result of things. Chaos, destruction and a threat to all life that existed all because they wanted to try and replicate the being that Xion was. Why did every disastrous thing always end up going back to something those selfish, arrogant people did? It was like some bad TV troupe or something that just kept popping up with every new problem. _I seriously wonder if someone hasn’t just thought to travel back in time and do a genocide of all the photoners that have been the cause of all these problems... well, no let’s be real. There’s no way anyone would know precisely who to kill off aside from Luther and Clarissa and maybe a handful of others... but in the scheme of things that wouldn’t likely have helped much._

“If you see her before I do then you can let her know about the situation. I thought it best to keep it under wraps but the three of you should at least know.” I said.

“I appreciate you bringing this to my attention and for your discreetness as well.” Xiao said.

“I will have to look into what might have brought you here and what happened to our friend.” I nodded.

“I’ll help in any way I can! I’ll search the databases and see if I can come up with any leads.” Xiera said.

“Me too! I’d like to help in any way that I can.” Matoi agreed.

“Thanks you two.” Xiao said and I nodded in agreement. It was nice, really, knowing that they would back each other up and me too, if I needed it. 

“If you don’t mind me asking. What is your name then?” Xiera asked, before I could answer though, Xiao spoke up.

“I don’t think it matters for the moment. For now, it’s just best to call them Kaori until we can ascertain what has happened that caused this situation. That way we don’t have any slip ups.” He then turned to me.

“I would appreciate it if you did your best to assume that role until we get things sorted out.” I nodded.

“I’ll do what I can. I think I know her well enough to pass for her off the field, as for on... I should probably take the training courses before I find myself expected to do any missions with others. I know some things, but only by concept and that’s not enough to ensure it’s done right.”

“A good idea. I’m sure Matoi can help you out there as well in showing you which classes you need to take and field any questions. If anyone asks, tell them to talk to me alright?” Matoi and I both nodded.

“Right.” She said.

“We’ll see you later then.” I headed back to the teleportation pad to head back to the Gate area where I knew I would start my training, not today though, tomorrow. 


	2. A Start

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that characters mentioned near the end of this chapter are actually Player Characters within PSO 2 and belong to their respective creators. I take no credit for them or anything to do with them beyond what is in this story.

“Where are you going?” Matoi asked as I headed towards the elevator.

“I’m going to my personal quarters to rest. I think I’ll just take it easy today, maybe talk to my auxiliary if she’s around, but beyond that there’s not much I plan to do until tomorrow.”

“That makes sense. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then.” 

“See you tomorrow Matoi.” I smiled and she and I parted ways there. She was heading towards the elevator that would lead to the shopping plaza. I headed to the elevator on the other side of the Quest Counter, as it had been called in the game. Once there I saw a panel that listed various levels of quarters instead of blocks... Well, what else was I to expect? I wasn’t sure which one mine was on though and I realized that as I looked at the list... shoot. I saw a pad near the list though and put my hand on it. The moment I did the elevator began to move. I hoped I’d done the right thing. Turns out that when I did I found myself in front of a doorway and when it opened I found myself in the small quarters I remembered. No bed of course. I realized this was going to be a rough night likely. I had forgotten how expensive it had been for the game. Personal quarters were based on if you bought a bunch of things with real money. Including how big they were.

The one I had was the standard free one.... Which meant it was crap. I went over to the terminal to see if I even had any items of furniture that were beds... No such luck. Right. Sleeping on the floor it was. I dismissed this idea though as I headed out to the balcony. I could see my auxiliary was still out on the last set of missions I remembered sending her on as I had done every time I’d logged in. I saw that the photon bath I had was warm and ready so I slid into the bath. Because it was photons and not water, of course it didn’t soak into the clothes I wore and was like bathing in air really except that bathing in photons was a lot different than that. It was soft and smooth like water was, but it didn’t cling to my clothes or anything like that. I wasn’t sure I could breathe under the photons and I wasn’t about to test that. 

For now though it helped me unwind and soothed the aches and pains away as well as helped soothe out any F-Factor this body had likely absorbed. That was the downside to using photons. The F-Factor was absorbed into the body and had to be purified out of it or too much would drive a person mad and eventually consume them, changing them into a Dark Falz. I knew the lore of Phantasy Star Online already. I knew that there already was a Dark Falz version of this form.... Persona. A Dark Falz born of despair, the despair of losing a close friend... Matoi, of having to kill her. Only by choosing a different path could time flow forward and the path that had led to being a Dark Falz be avoided. Of course I’d avoided that path with Kaori when given the chance, after all, two friends should not fight like that. Shouldn’t not be put in the position where one must kill the other. I decided that, while I soothed my aches in the bath, I would speak with the former Dark Falz. I closed my eyes.

The five of them stood before me, Gettemhult was glaring, Margareta was just staring at me, her arms crossed, Luther had his nose in a book and Flo and Fleur didn’t seem to care too much but like any child they were staring at me with an innocent curiosity.

“She’s back.” Flo said.

“She has come back.” Fleur echoed.

“Took you long enough. You sure have some guts.” Gettemhult grumbled.

“That’s quite enough out of you.” I say. This seemed to surprise them, Luther looked up from his book to meet my gaze as I looked at the group.

“Clearly you heard everything I’ve said, but do I need to remind you that I happen to be in control of the body that plays host to you?” Gettemhult harrumphed a little but this seemed to make Margareta at least uncross her arms. 

“Well then, you certainly aren’t quite like her then.” 

“In a sense, I am her, but not.” 

“Care to elaborate?” 

“As I stated to the others. This world is a game in my world. Nothing more, nothing less; it doesn’t mean, however, that I have no care for its residents. That I do not know your stories. I was with her from the very beginning. I saw all of her battles, her wins, her losses. I was the one who directed her steps so that she became who you came to respect instead of becoming Persona. She and I are not as different as night and day. We are very similar. That in and of itself might factor into why whatever happened to make me take her place did happen.” 

“Hmm, you’re smart too.” Luther commented after a moment.

“I am. I am likely more well versed in such things than she ever was. It is my strength, just as combat was hers. I will do what I can to keep up the charade of being her as needed. I expect that you will keep me from falling too far from it because no doubt each of you is aware that it could spell disaster if I’m found out and that means ill for you as well if they start probing me for answers to questions they didn’t even ask. You above all, Luther, should be aware of how that sort of thing happens, considering all you did.” 

“You have me there. Very well. I will play along for now. I do hope you don’t disappoint.” He walked off, disappearing into the grey realm.

“As long as it doesn’t get us that... I’ll help you as much as I can.” Margareta agreed before storming up to me.

“If you mess this up for me though you’re going to wish you never met me!” I leaned back a bit just to get some space between us, but otherwise held my ground. She seemed satisfied and left.

“Yeah... whatever.” Gettemhult left too, that was the best I could expect from him. I knew that much at least and I knew he wouldn’t jeopardize anything either. So there was that. I looked over at Flo and Fleur.

“This is so exciting.” Flo said.

“Yes, just like a new game. We haven’t had a new game in a while.” Fleur echoed. 

“We’ll help you as much as we can.” Flo said.

“We will help you remember and learn.” Fleur commented, the two were so in sync that it was hard to tell them apart, aside from the different hair clips and I had figured out which was which a while back. Flo had the left clip and Fleur had the right. Though it was never outright stated to anyone else, Fleur was Flo’s duplicate in female form. A child who understood him, the perfect playmate. 

“Thanks.” I opened my eyes and looked out at the cityscape that stretched out into the distance. I didn’t know how far the quarters of operatives were from the actual city, but I knew that the operatives’ quarters ringed the city of the ordinary colonists. Sort of like a wall. Made it easier to spot trouble when falspawn managed to get aboard. I never did find out how they ever got aboard the ships. When Luther was in charge that was one thing, he was probably letting them in on purpose as a distraction from the things he was up to. Nowadays... I’ve no idea. Maybe it was something that couldn’t be fully prevented? Or if it could, no one knew how to do it. My thoughts turned back to the questions I had on functionality and I got out of the bath. I felt refreshed and clean. I wasn’t sure how that worked but I wasn’t going to question it as I headed back into the small space and went over to the storage console.

I tapped it and the usual menu I was used to came up, but I saw that instead of the usual AC, extras either cost SG or high priced mesta. I glanced over at the small menu that let me know how much mesta I had. I still had the eight million I remembered having from my last log in. Still, that didn’t amount to much unfortunately. Most weapons and items were in the range of ten million on up. It depended on the item’s rarity and the augments it had on it. I tapped the last one, that had been my AC storage, it had now been changed to mesta, thank goodness. Mesta, at least, wasn’t hard to come by. It was just that gathering it in great amounts had always been difficult. Even top tier missions one usually only found mesta in the thousands just laying around or dropped by enemies. That brought to mind another question, would enemies drop anything once they disappeared? Would they disappear or would they leave carcasses?

Boy, that wasn’t a pleasant trail of thoughts was it? In the game, all the enemies always disappeared after they were taken care of, would that be the same here or not? If not, I guess there’d likely be a ‘clean up’ crew that followed ARKS operatives around, but that didn’t make much sense, but still... Well, the only way to find out the answer to that was to get back into the field. That wasn’t going to happen any time soon, at least not unaccompanied. There were just so many questions that had yet to be answered. I knew I said I was going to rest but I really needed to get some questions answered, I wondered if I could switch to my auxiliary... Now how did one do that again? I walked over to the Auxiliary terminal and accessed it then went through the list... and didn’t find anything useful. Okay, so that was out of the question. I sat down near the terminal, fortunately not long after I did my Auxiliary appeared; in the game they were basically just AI partners that could be helpful and only now did I remember that they were just that and that a player did not control them beyond assigning them task missions or taking them on missions alongside them. 

“Hello Siyo.” 

“Hello master.” 

“How did you fair today?” 

“I’d say it was an overall success.” She pulled out a tablet and tapped it, my own tablet vibrated and I pulled it out of the pocket on the dress... who knew this dress had hidden pockets? I guess it only made sense to a degree. I looked into my inventory to see what I had gotten... mostly stuff for Franca’s quests. It raised their exp and level but gave me the items that they had gotten. Normally I sold the stuff to the people in the shopping center rather than turning them in so that I could continue to use them as quests to send Siyo on.

“You look troubled master.” 

“I guess you could say that.” Then an idea came to me.

“I seem to feel as if I’ve forgotten some things that I used to do regularly. I was hoping that you could help me figure out what it is I’ve forgotten by going over some basic things with me.”

“I’d be happy to assist.”

“Great. Let’s start with the simplest of things, just to make sure we don’t miss anything.” She nodded, though she seemed a little puzzled at this and I can’t say I blame her. I had her start with herself as I wasn’t sure how any of this was going to be different from the game. Auxiliaries, according to her, were young ARKS operatives looking to gain experience in the battlefield and such without the burden of having to lead a team. They were free-ranger ARKS and weren’t always just the new faces that did this, but others that preferred to take orders instead of give them were often good for this kind of role and there was no shortage of them waiting to be assigned a partner. I knew that off hand mine called me master because I had sent them off on many, many assignments and they had a high level of affection for me... or well, for Kaori anyway. 

From what they knew from watching others, the marketplace shops were run by individuals usually and cost a ton of mesta to maintain every month. Something around 70,000 she wasn’t sure but that sounded pretty reasonable to me and wouldn’t be too much of a burden in terms of fees for what I currently had so that was a relief. In game I would make around one million mesta a day from the shop alone, so that fee wasn’t unreasonable - in my opinion - and wouldn’t be hard to keep up so long as I continued to put items into it. I had so many that I probably would have a few for at least the rest of the month that would keep me afloat. It would give me time to adjust to actually being here and start training with my pets and other weaponry. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to take up Fighter though or the other classes now that I was here myself because that meant putting myself in harms way... even with armor on. I knew I had armor on because I could feel it shift with my movement, but I also knew it was in stealth mode currently so it couldn’t actually be seen by the naked eye. 

Falspawn and other creatures didn’t leave behind forms to be cleaned up as they simply dissolved into photons after death, for falspawn that meant becoming F-Factor spores though, which was why every so often it was a good idea to bathe in photons to help clear out the F-Factor and keep on top of check ups every month to make sure that one wasn’t overburdened. Those who were near or over the limit were put into cryosleep to purify the F-Factor. The newest enemies, however, had a very high quantity of both photons and F-Factor and would absorb any photons used against them, which is why new weaponry was being made to combat them. Even new AIS. 

I was never particularly good at using the AIS but maybe I could learn to be better than I was in the game. Who knew what aIl I would be capable of? This thought helped soothe me as I felt a bit lonely even though I wasn't really alone. I missed my family and friends, the people I knew and who knew me.... I settled against the wall as I listened to Siyo. At some point I fell asleep.

I woke up a little sore, but otherwise no worse for the wear. As I yawned I almost jumped out of my skin when I heard a voice that I wasn’t expecting.

“Good morning master. Did you sleep well?” I blinked and looked over at Siyo, it took me a moment before everything came rushing back. It hadn’t been just a dream, I really was in the world of Phantasy Star Online 2.

“I did, thanks. Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep while you were talking.” 

“It is fine, did you find the information useful in remembering what you’d forgotten?” 

“I did, yes. Thank you.”

“Of course, do you have anything else you wish of me today?” 

“Hmm, a few tasks as usual, but nothing else beyond that.” 

“As you wish.” I stood up and walked over to the Auxiliary station and tapped out the tasks I wanted her to do.

“I’ll get to them.” She said after glancing at the list and stepped on the pad that would allow her to teleport away. I stretched out, rubbed out some spots and then headed out. I headed for Franca’s cafe. I didn’t know all of what they served there but at least I knew that it was food I was familiar with. It was odd having steak for breakfast, but it was one of the limited items they had on the menu and it was as close to a normal breakfast as I was going to get since this was a Japanese based game and a lot of the dishes were based on that culture. I had some tea to go with it. It was a great meal for only about ten mesta. I felt better and more alert after I’d eaten. I thought then about what I should do. I hadn’t seen Matoi yet, so I figured I would see what I could learn on my own about my shop’s inventory. I went over to the nearest Visiphone and activated it. I was just grateful that I had made my password to my shop a simple one so I couldn’t really forget it. I noticed there were only a handful of items and there was a fair amount of mesta waiting for me. I gathered the mesta from the sales and restocked the store. I was not as willing to have really low prices on some things now that my own life depended - for the moment - on this shop’s success. Once I had done that I headed back to the table I had been at. It had already been cleared off by the staff, allowing me to sit and enjoy the view. 

The holiday decorations really were pretty and it was nice that while the decorations were there, the temperature was not an uncomfortable one. Despite the icy appearance of all the decorations I wondered what was truly snow and what was just some replication stuff... or perhaps none of it was real snow or ice and that was why it didn’t matter what the temperature was. Then a thought occurred to me, I hadn’t seen any of my pets around... what class was I? I headed off from the cafe to the Class Counter, I was not surprised to see that there was a gentleman behind the counter. He looked a bit like an officer the way he was dressed, with black pants, a white shirt with an over coat of maroon and gold with black sleeves, white gloves, a sky blue tie and a maroon hat with black sides and golden decorations. He had brown hair and eyes and while I knew he was the Class Consultant I couldn’t remember his name. I had never had too much interaction with him in the game to remember.

“Hello.” 

“Hi, what would you like to do today?” 

“I want to check on my classes.”

“Of course.” He pulled out a tablet and tapped something then held it out to me. It could see the device was hooked up to a console on his side and after I input my information on it I was relieved to see it easily brought up my classes. I was currently listed as an Advanced Etoile, a Master in Summoner, an Apprentice in Techter, an Advanced Fighter, a Beginner in Hero, and a Novice in Braver. That was interesting, but not an unrealistic set of advancements.

“I want to work on finishing my mastery as a Summoner and I’ll use Fighter as my sub-class.” I said. I wasn’t sure how else to put it. The gentleman nodded and went over to a panel that might be a storage unit. He hit a button and produced what looked like a long sword in a sea green sheath with a black handle. I knew this was the harmonizer I had opted... if I remembered right, it was called the Raven Barl. It was a Techter’s weapon, but could also be used as a harmonizer. He then opened a door, not that I had noticed. The moment that I touched it I felt a presence and saw a dog run to my side. It had a black coat with purple ears and paws, a purple bushy tail and black wings with purple tinted feathers. It also had on a gold collar with a diamond shaped, teal gem on the end and a white musical note in the middle of the circle of the collar where normally a name tag might be on a normal dog. 

“Hello Viola. Let’s get going, shall we?” I smiled, though I had forgotten how small I was compared to others. The pet floated above the ground by a foot and was taller than me by a couple inches because of this. I also noticed what I hadn’t before, it had horns on its head and some sort of ring around the base of its tail. It followed me as I left the counter. I wasn’t entirely sure where Matoi was and so I headed back to the cafe. I assumed that no one would care if I had Viola with me and I was right. I took a seat with a bit of a view of the holiday slides, but it was mostly obscured by the plants. I didn’t mind. They were lightly frosted with snow too and holographic snow lightly drifted down around anyway. A waiter came over and I ordered some tea, but beyond this I wasn’t sure what to do. Viola seemed content enough to stay by my side, not making any noise. Come to think of it, I didn’t think Violas even made noise during battle in the game.

At least not that I could recall, it wasn't the only one either. Sally and Popple also seemed to be rather quiet and Redran was as well for the most part... or perhaps it was more accurate to say that the sounds those pets made were never really heard over the noise of battle. I let the thoughts fade though as I wondered what I should do next. It wasn’t like I could just jump into missions on my own. Well, okay, I wouldn’t exactly be alone likely but even so, it would be obvious real quick I didn’t know what I was doing. I hoped that Matoi would appear in the cafe soon. I didn’t want to sit here all day and do nothing just waiting around. I was never one of those busybodies but in a strange place with so many counting on me to keep up a specific role I felt that I needed to at least look like I was doing something even if I wasn’t doing anything at all in particular. As I was thinking that an idea crossed my mind. In the emotes one was able to access a terminal... could I do that? Even though I was in the cafe... I decided I had nothing to lose and looked around to make sure that no one was paying attention to me before I attempted this. I didn’t want to make a complete fool of myself. I focused inwardly, thinking about the photons I now had to see if that would work. To my surprise, and relief, it did! Though the terminal that appeared was like the old version of ‘operating terminal’ and I wondered if that meant I could access both types or if it was just this one... I shook the idea away as I noticed that there were symbols on the holographic keyboard and the holographic screen read:

Awaiting input.

The letters were, at first, strange to me then I realized I could read them. Of course, the font for PSO2 wasn’t in a different language, it was just a different font! Curious about what she could find she began to type: Arks Record, Kaori 

The computer brought up a small document.

Name: Kaori

Rank: Guardian

Age: unknown

Background: An ARKS operative who showed remarkable potential once completing training in the Academy. The Fleet Oracle is in great debt to her and the other Guardian, Matoi, for all of their work. 

Little is actually known about this individual aside from their work record among ARKS, having taken on the Dark Falz collective and the Profound Darkness itself on numerous occasions and emerged triumphant every time. 

Her ability to command pets to be deadly is matched only by the deadliness of the blade she sometimes wields into battle. She is a versatile operative and was once considered to possibly be on the Council of Six; it was decided, however, that she and Matoi would best serve ARKS in the field as they had a high success rate among their missions respectively. 

I closed the file with a sigh and dismissed the terminal. I was hoping there might be some more useful information, but no. It only reminded me of the big shoes I had to fill now. This could be a real disaster. Wait... what about the group? As a player, I’d been in an alliance called the Neo Vanguard Irregulars. A band of misfits really. I hadn’t really seen any other player characters around yet, were they not here? If they were... were they like me or were they like the rest of the crew? I wasn’t sure if I’d be relieved if they were or not. This was really messed up... and now that I thought about it, shouldn’t I be able to find out? Before I could attempt to access that though Matoi appeared.

“Kaori, there you are! Are you ready for today?” I nodded and got up and followed her from the cafe. I’d have time later to check. No one at the Quest Counter questioned us as we set up time for some training in one of the rooms. 

“I got a tablet on the basics of your class.” Matoi handed me the tablet and I scanned it, it was the exact same information from the game... Great. That wasn’t helpful. That meant this would just be trial and error. Matoi had a target programmed in and I looked at Viola.

“Well, let’s give this a whirl.” I muttered under my breath and unsheathed the harmonizer from its place at my hip. As large as it was it was more like a rapier than a harmonizer. As I lifted the weapon, however, I noticed there were a few buttons on it. Coincidently they were coded the same colors as I remembered my controller being... sort of. The top was black, below it was yellow and blue. I wondered if they, by some sheer coincidence, coincided with the game controller I had used. Well, there was only one way to find out. I pressed the blue button and swirled the harmonizer, a series of notes issued from it and Viola leapt at the target, attacking. That was a relief. Coincidence or not. This just made this that much easier.... Matoi seemed a bit relieved too, or maybe that was just my imagination when I took down the first target.

“You did it! Let’s move on then shall we?” I nodded. The rest of the day until lunch time we spent practicing. I learned how to read my opponents better and dodge when I needed to and command of my pet began to become more and more easy as the day progressed. As we broke for lunch I realized I wasn’t sure how to switch between pets... so I examined the weapon a bit more closely. I saw that on the side of the hilt was another button. Was this perhaps it? I clicked it and waved the harmonizer to see what would happen... sure enough. Viola disappeared in a sparkle of photons only to be replaced by Jingla, my alternate colored Jinga.

“Are you good?” 

“Yeah, just was testing something. Thanks for all the hard work today Matoi.” 

“No problem. I’m just glad that I could help.” I nodded and we headed back to the cafe for lunch. I ordered some ramen. There wasn’t really much we could talk about in public honestly, but I could tell she had questions that just probably weren’t suited for public conversation. I felt bad for her. Her best friend and the one she’d relied on so much had just up and vanished only to be replaced by a stranger who only looked and sounded like her friend. I honestly could not imagine what she was going through having to deal with this sort of thing. I had no words to offer, even if I were a friend what could I ever hope to tell her? How could I say things would be okay if I didn't know myself? I just felt that this was messed up... that I shouldn't be here... could I really fill my avatar's role? Well... it wouldn't be without trying at least. Once the meal was over and had settled I looked at Matoi with determination.

"Let's get back to work. There's a lot I need to learn and I will do my best." She smiled and nodded. It seemed to have cheered her up some. I knew Kaori wasn't one to give up and with so much on the line there was no way I could either. This had only begun. I was going to find a way to save them all... somehow. I just needed something I didn't have before. Then I wondered, did I have something? I stowed the thought away for later as we returned to the training room and I started learning about my second class... Fighter. I was clumsy, battered and bruised by the end of it but I was getting better. While I had never held a weapon in my life against an actual living thing I was getting the hang of it and my reflexes from Summoner on top of the martial arts I had taken in my youth kept me steps ahead of most blows. Though they were just holograms they still hurt and they could still knock me out if I wasn't careful. That would have been embarrassing. After training and getting patched up I headed to the elevator and looked at my options. I could still go to the alliance quarters... thank goodness. I headed there. The hot spring beyond the outcrop where the ship was stationed was a welcome sight and I felt relieved as I found a seat to Stretch out in. So the place was intact... what did that mean about its members? Were they like me or...?

In all honesty, I’m not sure I know which I would prefer. Each scenario would come with its own complications. If they were like me... well, at least I wasn’t alone right? But then, that would mean they were trapped in the events too... and that didn’t explain why I was stuck in the position of Guardian and they were just regular operatives, not to mention that sort of thing probably wouldn’t go over well with them... I grimaced at the thought of that. No way I wanted to be put on the spot like that where I was the one who had to replace the Guardian when the others could likely do just as well... or at least most of them could from what I knew. I had my doubts about Sakura Fubuki managing to fulfill such a role and it not just cause mass chaos. I might not remember her full profile but I do remember she was a criminal who had spearheaded a group and cared nothing for those below her, was rumored to have skinned alive the previous leader and after being captured had sold out those she’d worked with. Yeah... she wasn’t an ideal fit for the role... Ninavask, on the other hand, wasn’t a bad choice... he was level headed in most situations, knew his limitations and though he had a bit of a memory issue he was definitely a good soul. That wouldn’t work out too bad... Hmmm, then there was Captain Stryker. He was an open pervert with a heart of gold, he said plenty of lewd or suggestive things but never acted on them. He was dedicated to his wife, Leila, who was a good soul too and matched her husband in terms of lewdness sometimes. I think either one of them would be a good fit too... as for the quartermaster, Rhedimond Halford, or Rhed as we called him for short... I am uncertain. I’ve had so little contact with him, but he seems like a good soul despite that his profile was sparse on his background. Then there was Minasien, she was the perfect candidate from what I knew. She wasn’t a part of the alliance in the official story really, more of a proxy as Kaori had been, but she also had been an excellent operative and only for the sake of role play and not being in the spot of the main character for purposes I’m still not sure I understand... she was supposed to be a Guardian... just not _the_ Guardian... still, she had redacted the rank for such purposes and I had done the same with Kaori by simply declining to list a rank at all. 

I had never gotten to know Zelsi Starhand well enough to say whether or not the Deuman would handle this better, the same could be said for Wilhelm, 1501, Z.Z, Dasher, Mia Steiner, Maya Artisan, Valkyrie Zero, Zunar, Zilvai and Lumeria Silverdash. I had only seen Wil, Zil, Valkyrie and Z.Z. once or twice and the others I had never met at all. Granted, some of those listed as being in the alliance, like Stryker and Minasein, were played by the same player, but as for the others... I had no idea who played them or if I’d even spoken to those individuals I had never met their characters. There were others whose characters I had seen as well that were not a part of the alliance - not even outside of role play - that would run into and enjoy being around. Though the only one who I really remembered was a Cast named Rory. It didn’t much matter but I hoped that they weren’t stuck here like I was; if they were... then that would be a good chunk of the Earth’s population... well, the Earth I knew anyway. 


	3. Earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The other characters that appear in this chapter are not mine. They are actual Player Characters and belong to their respective creators. The only character I lay claim to is Kaori - which is my avatar in PSO2.

I have been here for at least a week. I’ve been working hard to adjust but honestly, the worst part about all of this so far has been the whole quarters thing. I haven’t run into anyone yet from the alliance I remember. Even though I’ve taken to getting my sleep on the spacious chairs there rather than sleeping on the floor of my quarters. I am not sure if I am grateful or not that I haven't and I haven't looked up any of the members yet for fear of what I may find. I am sitting there now, in the alliance quarters and all is quiet save the sound of the waterfalls here in the station where the ship landed. I feel uneasy, staring at the terminal before me but I know that I also have to know for sure if their records even exist... So, I push my trembling hands to type out the first name... Ninavask.

I hit enter and hold my breath as the words 'searching' pop up and then it disappears to be replaced by words I am not sure if they are good or not: 

1 match found

I tap the open option and the character profile I knew appeared.

Name: Ninavask

Age: 32

Height: 4’ 5”

Weight: 172 lbs

Race: Deuman

Gender: Male

Class: Braver, Fighter, Hunter, Etoile, Phantom

ARKS Designation: Vanguard, Instructor, AIS Pilot

Background: Ninavask has been an ARKS Operator for the better part of a decade serving as a vanguard and front line operator for ARKS against falspawn and corrupted. On record he is a calm and diligent operative who scored highly in physical and tactical programs during training, while suffering in technique performance reviews.

Despite this failure, he has gone on to become a decorated instructor for the Gurhal Division. An ARKS Operative Training School he founded. A certified instructor, he has taught many young ARKS Ops how to use their abilities to the fullest in combating any threat that ARKS are likely to face.

Despite his calm nature, in heated combat Ninavask has been described as headstrong and reckless. He seems to enjoy battle and the more difficult the battle, the more he gets lost in the passion of combat unless restricted by operational objectives.

  
  


I wasn't sure if I should feel relief or not. This was his character’s profile, but now that I thought back, when I had looked myself up, the profile that was there wasn’t the one I’d imagined for this game. It was completely different. I wondered if there were others... but who should I look up? I thought for a moment then picked the one my character had clashed with... 

Name: Sakura Fubuki

Age: 39

Height: 6’ 3” 

Weight: 160 lbs

Race: Deuman

Gender: Female

Class: Braver

ARKS Designation: Former Criminal, Vanguard

Background: Sakura was born in the lower class civilian areas of the Thorn. She was quick to pick up ways of crime. Her early teen offenses include: theft, vandalisms, assault, evasion of arrest, drunk and disorderly conduct

Upon reaching adulthood, she had gone into a career in organized crime, working for an already established network of smugglers, racketeers and other illegitimate businesses. Sakura often worked as a look out or narcotics distributor for the criminal network known only as The Jade Dragon.

In her late 20s she began more violent crimes. The Jade Dragon saw potential with the development of her photonic abilities and put her to work as their new enforcer and debt collection agent, as well as tasking her with keeping an eye out for other enforcement agents from ARKS. 

Sakura was given three cycles in cryogenic containment for assault with a deadly weapon, defense of a known member of the The Jade Dragon, resisting arrest, disturbing the peace, blackmail, extortion and the near death of a local shopkeeper. Two ARKS enforcement agents were wounded in apprehension.

Upon release and rehabilitation, Sakura returned to her organization. Informants place Sakura as a lead suspect in an unsolved missing persons case. An informant states that there was a power struggle between the previous leaders of The Jade Dragon and Sakura. She is believed to have skinned the previous head of the organization and had thrown him out an airlock, all while still alive. This has never been proven but the implications were enough to sentence her for 20 cycles to life in cryogenic containment. Her capture lead to an interesting plea deal where she gave enough evidence to crumble The Jade Dragon and implicate 50 others of various crimes. In exchange she did only 3 more cycles in cryogenic containment. She is currently being admitted to the ARKS Academy pending parole and time spent under the Neo Vanguard Irregulars.

  
  


I frown a little, I remembered some of this profile but not all of it... so I can’t be certain if this was entirely correct... or not. I tried to go for one I remembered being much shorter on information...

  
  


Name: Rhed Halford

Age: 37

Height: 5’ 9”

Weight: 170 lbs

Race: Human

Gender: Male

Class: Ranger

ARKS Designation: Quartermaster, Neo Vanguard Irregulars; Fire Support Specialist

Background: A second-generation ARKS raised among merchants on Nauthiz. Rhed Halford did not enlist as an operative until his family’s business failed and additional income was needed. Due to low potential, he can only manipulate photons when channeled through a firearm; this has relegated him to the class of Ranger and support positions within ARKS. After three years of undistinguished field service, he retired from an active combat role and became the quartermaster of his frontline unit.

Rhed’s stewardship proved to be problematic. Shipments of material were often delayed, incorrect, or outright lost. With discrepancies appearing to be far beyond mere negligence, an internal investigation was launched within ARKS. While the results were never made public, rumor among his fellow operatives was that the Ranger was selling photon weaponry and related supplies to his supposed contacts among civilian criminals.

Lacking evidence for a conviction or discharge, Rhed was never formally punished for such suspect behavior. He was, however, transferred - reassigned to the Neo Vanguard Irregulars, where he continues a record of mediocre service and questionable dedication.

  
  


Everything seemed to be in order... but then, why had my own been so sparse? That didn’t make any sense... did it have something to do with me replacing the main character who was mostly a blank slate anyway? I clicked on a link that was a full list of all the members of the Neo Vanguard Irregulars, it seemed the list was rather short really and I wasn’t one of the listed. No surprise there. My character had been a proxy really and hadn’t officially been a member... just a member of the role playing group. There was a list of those associated with the group as well. I clicked that. Well, wasn’t that interesting? According to the list I had some affiliation with them. That wasn’t too surprising. I was Ninavask’s best friend after all in this, so that alone made me connected to the group. I had never really minded the person behind Sakura’s character... but I had not really liked Sakura herself. I wasn’t sure how to feel about being affiliated with criminals. Not that all the members of the Irregulars were criminals, but many of them had questionable backgrounds that had made her uneasy about being around them, both in and out of character.

I had only joined the group because of Ninavask. So the question now was... was Ninavask himself... or the person I knew? There wasn’t that much difference between them honestly. At least not in terms of personality, but backgrounds aside, the biggest difference between Ninavask and the man she knew who was behind Ninavask was that I had been married to him. Not just his best friend. As Kaori... I’d been a single female adult working out her own issues... and the main character had no love interest at all let alone a life - at least according to the records if that was to be believed. That was troubling, to a degree, but then again the Player Character, or PC, was supposed to be for the sake of immersion but in this world it made next to no sense and just made them an anomaly- her an anomaly. Yes Xion had sent Kaori back in time to undo certain events or change them but at the same time... why her and no one else? There was never any explanation as to why Xion had picked this particular individual for the task or how or why they had such a strong connection to her and Matoi... was it possible that the reason for this was because Xion had created them? Was Kaori's true origins really that of a being created for a purpose instead of chosen? If so, that explained the lack of information. Why she was so power... why I am so powerful with photons without much effort and why things seem so ridiculously easy... it seemed the most plausible in lore.

My thoughts went back to my family and friends though. Were they worrying about me? Did they think something bad had happened? Well, something had happened alright, but I wasn’t sure I’d call this bad per say... and what would my husband think? I wondered if I should track down Ninavask. I knew that character just as well as she did my husband. Before I could solidify the thoughts on the matter a movement out of the corner of my eye made my head snap about in surprise. The first person I’d ever seen come in. To be there beyond the usual attendants anyway. He didn’t seem to notice me or wasn’t paying attention, I wasn’t sure. I crouched next to the seat I’d been sitting in. I’d no idea why the idea to hide from the stranger came over me as I watched what looked like a.... medieval knight? He wore the armor of one, was broad of shoulder and seemed like he’d stepped out of one of the many romance novels I had read in my youth. He had long brownish blonde hair, a beard, and while I couldn’t be certain from this distance I would not be surprised to find out his eyes were blue.

A sort of stunning, 80s or 90s Hollywood figure and he seemed to be on a mission. He went over to the visiphone to check something, he then made his way to the alliance message board and checked it before he went over to the storage unit. The message board! Of course! Why didn’t I think to check it? Wouldn’t my husband have sent out some sort of alliance wide distress signal upon my going missing? I wasn’t sure I should just walk up and - why was I so nervous all of the sudden? This was ridiculous! I stood up straight. I had every right to be here too! I was a member, there was nothing suspicious about me being here and I had just as much reason to walk up to the board to check it for messages as he did. Nothing out of the ordinary in doing that even if what I was looking for wasn’t there. Maybe the reason I was nervous was because I was afraid of what I’d find. I shook away such thoughts.

I needed to let him know I was okay... somehow, if I could. I wasn’t sure if the world I knew was bridged with this one. I wasn’t sure what I would do if it wasn’t. _No, I need to do this. I can’t move on if I don’t find out the truth of the matter of how things are. I am either trapped in a video game and need to find a way out... or this is all real and there’s no way back. At least, no known way._ Swallowing my nerves, I walked over to the board and on the way there I rehearsed in my mind how to use the doggone thing because I hadn’t before... reminding myself it was a touch screen and how to access the various things from what I had learned from Siyo. I did my best to ignore the man, he had to be in his 20s or 30s from what I could tell. I didn’t want to give away that I was kind of checking him out in my peripheral as I touched the message board and scanned the messages. Looking for anything that seemed out of the ordinary, but no. There was... nothing. Nothing but a couple of messages I recalled vaguely had been there from the role play.

As I turned from the board a thought struck me. I had another character... I had made one... was she her own person now? I couldn’t be sure. I had made her just to go through some story, but then had abandoned her without another use for her and no real way to delete her. I was glad I hadn’t done that actually. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be responsible for someone’s death here. So, there were no messages here... that didn’t mean there weren’t any period. The trouble was that I had no way of accessing the chat board that we’d been using and thus that meant that if there had been any messages from him about me missing there was no way I had access to them. In fact, chances were no one even knew the program existed... except maybe on Earth. _I have to get to Earth some how then... maybe accept a mission there and hope that I can use some down time while I’m there running the mission to actually get ahold of a communication device and... wait... maybe if I found one of the Earth Guides... well no, what would I say? Hmm, maybe Enga or Hitsugi might understand, but there’s not much chance in this chaos I’ll be able to get a hold of one or the other for certain without clearance or some state of emergency and I can’t do the latter for certain. That would cause too much of a ruckus. I can at least get down to Earth, that’s a start... and maybe get to Hitsugi’s school. Khori might be able to help too... those three are likely my only hope in seeing if my world is connected to this one._

With this goal in mind I headed out of the Alliance Hall and went to the teleporter, heading back to the Thorn. I didn’t expect it to be as easy as it was. I just walked up to the Quest Counter and requested a mission to Earth. I was handed a tablet to sign off on the mission and I did so. I then headed for the Gate and walked out of it. It was strange, there were no lights on the floor like in the game, but a blue sort of energy field shimmered ahead and I stepped through it. Instantly I was on a dropship that was heading towards Earth. I checked my tablet to see that I had stocked up on healing supplies. The pet I had with me this time was a Jinga. A dog like creature with yellow horns on its head that went back into two long points and split to two smaller points that headed forward on its head. Its body and head were a deep pink color with blue eyes and its legs faded to a purple as did its tail and two spikes of fur between its horns, its ears also were purple while the rest faded to white. Its tail was purple with a streak of white along it.

All its fur ended in spikes, as if spiky weapons instead of fur. I wasn’t sure it was fur honestly and I didn’t want to find out the hard way. Despite that it was one of my favorites, I refrained from trying to pet it. At least for now. I went over to the partner terminal and as I thought there were friends I could invite, Ninavask being one of only four I currently had registered. The tab on the menu that had been labeled “free” once now said “operative” for some odd reason then I realized that it saying “free” didn’t make any sense in this universe because that was how one obtained FUN points. I wondered if those were still a thing... I opened the tab to see Ninavask on the list under Friends and the expected blue circle with a white “f” in it told me that yes, that was still a thing here. I thought that was odd, but I wasn’t going to judge that. It didn’t matter too much to me. I didn’t have much use for it. I went over to “support” and tapped Matoi’s file. I then closed out of it and waited. The few minutes it probably took seemed like forever as I just leaned against the wall waiting for her to arrive.

“There you are! Why did you call me out on a mission? I thought we weren’t going to do any yet.”

“I need you to help me find Hitsugi or Enga.”

“Huh? Hitsugi? Why?”

“Because her situation wasn’t so unlike what mine is now.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, she is from a different universe altogether isn’t she? I sort of forget that with the ease of how they travel here now and how we travel there. I’d forgotten that it wasn’t the same.” 

“Exactly. If anyone can understand it’s those two, plus I need to see if I can manage to get in touch with my home world and she’s my best bet.” 

“Hmm, why her?” 

“I’m from Earth too, just not her Earth. I’m banking on the fact that hers will be sort of a copy of mine and I can use that as a bridge across the dimensions.” 

“Hmmm, I’m not sure I understand, but I will support you any way I can. Let’s go!” I nod and move over to the telepool. I look at the strange pool, it looked like water but wasn’t. I wondered briefly if I needed to hold my breath before shaking away the thought and jumping after Matoi who hadn’t hesitated. It was strange, flowing through what seemed like a blue sort of tunnel and out the other end I materialized on Earth with Matoi waiting for me.

“This way!” She lead the way towards the school, we had landed just outside of it. 

“Hmmm, I wonder where she is this time of day.”

“Maybe we should cheek the dorm rooms first.” 

“Good idea.” The two of us head off towards the dorm rooms. I follow Matoi since I don’t really know my way around the place and she knocks on the door. It swings open but it wasn’t Hitsugi who greeted us, but a young man with blonde hair and blue eyes dressed in a sky blue shirt and grey pants. He smiled when he saw us.

“Hi! Come on in!” He then called over his shoulder.

“Sis! We have company!” He smiled as we followed him into the small room. He sat down on the pallet on the floor that was his bed, the young man was Al, short for Alphonse. His story was a bit complicated, he was made up of both aether and F-factor photons; he wasn’t bad though and the F-factor had never taken over him except when he’d been absorbed by Mother. Sitting on the bed, in a yellow sweater and a red pleated skirt. She had red hair and blue eyes, she also smiled when she saw us. 

“Hello Hitsugi.”

“Hey! What brings you two here? Not more trouble I hope.” 

“Well... sorta.” Matoi looked over at me.

“What do you mean sorta?” 

“Do you remember what your reaction to first being in PSO2 was Hitsugi?” I asked.

“Yeah, it was really cool! Also kinda scary though, finding out that your world was really a real place and not just a game.” 

“Well... it seems I’ve stepped into your place.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean I’m not Kaori, even though I look and sound like her.” I began explaining to her what I had told Matoi. She seemed thoughtful afterwards.

“So let me get this straight... you’re from Earth too, but not this Earth?” I nodded.

“So... why come to me then?” She seemed puzzled.

“I wanted to borrow your computer. There’s a few communication platforms I’m on that, if they are a bridge between your Earth and mine, I can get in contact with those I left behind.” 

“I don’t get it.” Al said.

“I don’t think I do either Al, but we owe them a lot. I don’t see any harm in letting her try.” 

“Yeah!” Al nodded in agreement.

“I appreciate this.” Hitsugi nodded and unlocked her desktop.

“I’m pretty sure the school won’t mind as long as it’s appropriate.” 

“I have no intentions of going to any site that wouldn’t be.” I replied.

“Then there shouldn’t be a problem.” I had to agree with her there. The group just watched as I sat down and got to work searching the Internet. The first thing I did was try and figure out what browser she used, then tried to search for the one I had used back home. It seemed that the browsers that were common back in my home were not so here. It was weird, but the icons were the same even if the names were different and they had the same function more or less. So it wasn’t difficult to find this one’s equivalent to the platform of Discord that I had used. I almost laughed when I saw its name was Harmony. It was like this was a complete opposite of my world. The sheer coincidence of all this was not lost on me really. I had no idea, however, if I could actually sign in. Despite the icons and everything being similar, I was well aware that they may be very different programs and that this... very well might not work. So I signed Hitsugi out of her account and took a silent, deep breath as I began to type in my own account name. It took me a moment, however, to remember the password I used. I logged in... or tried to an any rate. It simply told me there was no such user. I just sat there, staring at the message for a moment before I leaned back into the chair with a sigh.

“Well?” Hitsugi asked.

“Did it work?” Al was the next to chime in.

“I’m afraid not.” I turn to look at them.

“It seems I truly am cut off from the world I knew. I have no way of contacting any of them.” No one seemed to know what to say. I shifted back to the screen and closed all the programs I’d opened in an attempt to get in touch with those I knew... those I loved. I stared at the screen, it almost seemed to taunt me. I think I was in a state of shock, because I didn’t really seem to feel anything. It was like none of it mattered. That the life before I had. Those I had loved... was all just nothing. Meant nothing. I knew, of course, somewhere in the back of my mind, that this wasn’t true. I loved my family. My husband. My friends. I knew I should be wailing out my despair for my loss. Yet I did nothing. I just.... sat there, staring. All I could think at that moment was that everything truly was gone. I no longer had family or friends who knew me. I had no home. I was an anomaly.

A being that wasn’t meant to exist... but somehow did. I should feel something. Anger, hate maybe... rage against my circumstances, but I didn’t. Then a thought occurred to me. I wasn’t really me anymore. This body wasn’t even mine, let alone this life, these people were not the friends I had made... they were not people I grew to care about and knew the little things about. They were just... data. To me they’d been characters in a game and somehow, for some reason I couldn’t really understand... I had been torn from the life I knew and thrust into this one. Where Kaori was I still had no answer but I hoped that she fared better than at that moment. What was the last thing I recalled before waking up here? 

I felt my head begin to ache. Why? Why was this painful? I could barely bring to mind now the faces I had last seen... why? Was I being forced to forget them? No... I could still remember them clearly. Faces, names... what they meant to me. I felt dizzy. I couldn’t recall clearly where I was... but everyone was there... and a voice I hadn’t heard before spoke... I could barely make out the words... I heard a name being called, but it sounded so distant and faint as darkness seemed to envelope my vision. I heard the voice again.

_“Promise me you will.”_ I then heard my own voice.

_“I promise.”_ The moment the words came to my mind everything went black.


	4. When Darkness Falls

When I came to, I saw three pairs of concerned eyes. My head was pounding and I felt like I’d been knocked for a loop as I sat up slowly.

“Are you okay?” It was Matoi who asked.

“Anyone get the license of the bus that hit me?” I asked. Matoi looked confused but Hitsugi got it and chuckled.

“What bus?” Al just seemed confused.

“It’s just a saying. Anyway, I think I’m okay... what happened.” 

“We don’t know, I was going to ask you that.” Hitsugi said.

“Hmmm, well, I was just sort of trying to process everything and figure out why things were the way they were and then... I heard something.” The three glanced at each other in puzzlement then looked at me.

“Heard something? Like what?” Matoi asked. 

“A voice I’d never heard before. I was thinking about my friends and family back home and trying to remember the last thing I could recall before I got here, but the memory wasn’t really coming and I felt dizzy and then I heard a voice trying to say something. I couldn’t make out what it was until the very end.” 

“And?” Al asked.

“What did it say?” Matoi followed up with her own question.

“They said ‘promise me you will’ but didn’t say what I was promising... and then I heard myself promise.”

“So you promised a voice you don’t recognize something that you don’t even know what it is you promised.” Hitsugi said, I could tell by her tone she thought this was nuts and I didn’t blame her.

“It seems so, yes, I know how crazy this all has to sound, but that’s all I got.” 

“That’s pretty crazy alright, but crazy is what we do.” Hitsugi said with a smile. I felt some sense of relief that they didn’t think that I was completely crazy at least.

“So, this place you come from is different from here?” 

“Yes, our technology is behind yours. Not by much, but enough and we don’t have any force we can use like aether or photons. We do have photons in our world, but we cannot harness them for the same reasons or uses that you have.”

“That’s kinda weird.” Al piped up.

“To you, perhaps, I imagine you’re so used to the ability you can’t imagine not having it and me... I’m so used to not having it that suddenly having it is strange to me.” 

“Makes sense.” Matoi said and I only nodded.

“So, uh, what will you do now?” Hitsugi asked after a moment of silence. 

“There’s not much I can do really. I’ll just focus on what I can though, I’ll train and try to live up to her name in the meantime until we can figure out how to get her back and me home, where I belong.”

“Kinda weird, ya know?” 

“What is?” I asked.

“Well, meeting you. You talk more than she does, but... I mean, you say you’re not her, but you’re an awful lot alike so... in a way, aren’t you one and the same?” 

“Well, yes and no.”

“I’m not sure I follow.” 

“I don’t either.” Al said.

“Me either.” Matoi agreed.

“Well, where I’m from this game is limited in terms of responses. Each response is scripted so it’s not necessarily what I might have said in a given situation. All I could do was pick the one that felt right or was the closest to how I thought I’d react if I was in her place... and sometimes the results were a bit on the hilarious side, but most times were heartfelt. I really felt, at times, like I was here... sharing everything with all of you even though I really wasn’t.” I paused a moment, while I felt a bit sad I still smiled a little.

“At the end of the day... it was just a game. It wasn’t real. I couldn’t really do anything to affect anyone and... I wasn’t some big hero or anything.” There was a moment of silence and then to my surprise, Hitsugi started to laugh, followed by Matoi. Al seemed a little puzzled though.

“He he... that’s just what she’d say if she was here.” Matoi said, clearing up my own confusion at their laughter.

“You really are a lot like her. You know, since she was your avatar, I guess it’s safe to say that you and her really are the same person. Limitations or not you’re still the guardian who came to my rescue when I needed it.”

“Yeah! And you helped rescue me and Mother!” Al piped up.

“And you save me as well.” Matoi chimed in. I looked at the three, I wasn’t sure why they felt this way.

“You’ve done so much, maybe it was just all a game to you, on your side, but for us it meant everything. You’ve been there for us, now it’s our turn to be there for you.” I couldn’t help but smile.

“Thanks everyone.” Even if there was nothing that they could do to help, they still wanted to be there for me... even if I really hadn’t done much more than just play a game that had impacted their lives. I just hoped that I could figure everything out. Matoi and I returned to the ship after a few hours of just hanging out with the two teens. It was nice to just be able to relax a bit, the mission I’d requested was a harvesting mission and it had turned up only a couple items, but nothing I’d need to complete the mission itself. Well, that would be for another trip there I suppose. The ability to relax for a while helped, but there was that bit of pressure in the back of my mind always. It refused to go away. 

No matter what I would do, it was there. I did research, training, talked to others, read books, drew pictures, wrote things - from my thoughts to fiction- and still it did not fade. A pressure that was just ever present and talking to the four in my head didn't do anything to change that. As I was sitting alone in my quarters on the balcony I couldn't help but sigh and then something occurred to me. Was it possible? It had only been a theory of mine after the events on Omega that Persona hadn't appeared because the main character _was_ Persona... well, rather that Persona had disappeared into them because they were one and the same even if Persona was from a timeline that was not this one. I closed my eyes, focusing inward to that grey plane.

"Persona? If you're here as I suspect... please. Come out. I can't do this on my own." I waited then. No response but I wasn't about to give up.

"You have to be here, where else would you have gone?" Still no answer and I saw no one no matter the direction I looked. I was about to give up when a thought occurred to me.

"Kaori?" I wasn't sure if that was right, Persona was her dark side right? I waited... Still nothing. I felt foolish for trying this, but what did I have to lose? My dignity and sanity apparently. I sighed. Maybe I was wrong about Persona. I sat down and wondered what I was supposed to do. Then a thought occurred to me. It was crazy, but I was an author... even if not a famous one. The unusual and impossible was my specialty wasn't it? So why not? Maybe this was the reason I was here now... or part of it. An author and a gamer were one and the same in that they could only be themselves in how they shone to the world. A game always played the same way as an author always wrote how they thought, it was the essence of who they are and Phantasy Star was a game that allowed for a closer link between player and character than most games. Allowing for better immersion. I stood up and steeled my resolve and called out to the emptiness before me, the name that left my lips was my own and it was confident and commanding. All seemed still, but then I heard a familiar strange voice behind me.

"Took you long enough. Why did you wait so long to call?" I turned, as expected the figure stood before me, dressed in a black jacket with a white shirt beneath and a deep maroon tie. Black pants and boots and a visor helmet that covered her features.

"Uncertainty, fear, ignorance. Pick one." I replied sarcastically and the other chuckled.

“Glad you find this amusing. I do not.” 

“I know.”

“So, you’re supposed to be my dark side then?”

“You know the answer to that question. You also know the answer to the next question you wish to ask. The answer has always been in front of you.” 

“Do you know why I was brought here?” 

“No.” 

“You know what must be done though, don’t you?” 

“A power that is not photons, not Dark Falz. This is the power that will defeat Shiva.” Kaori nodded thoughtfully.

“I’m not sure I possess such power and I’m not sure Kaori ever did.” 

“It is what is needed to ensure victory. Knowing you, this isn’t the end of anything. It is only the beginning.”

“The beginning of what though?” 

“That is up to you. Isn’t it?” I sighed.

“You’re not being very helpful you know.” 

“And what would you gain if I gave you all the answers?” 

“I never asked for answers to everything, just a few things. What do you know about a promise?” 

“Nothing. You’ll find your answers in time.” With that they were gone. Kaori sighed, why couldn’t she just get a straight answer? Did the other really have to be _that_ difficult?! She opened her eyes. What had Persona meant by all that? Did they really not know about a promise between her and Kaori? How was it they didn’t know? She wondered if the rest of them might have some idea as to what this promise was and her thoughts summoned the four of them.

“You called?” Luther shut the book he was holding.

“Is there something you want?” Flo asked.

“Is there something you need?” Fleur echoed.

“What is it?” Margareta asked, seeming a little miffed at being disturbed, only Gettemhult was silent.

“What do you lot know about a promise?” 

“A promise? As in something between friends?” Flo asked.

“Yes, something between two friends?” Fleur replied.

“Hmmm, I do not know anything about any promise I’m afraid.” Luther replied thoughtfully.

“Neither do I. What do you mean a promise?” 

“It’s something I’ve remembered, there was a promise between Kaori and I but I don’t know what that promise was. I still can’t remember anything of real relevance.” Gettemhult frowned.

“Well you’d better remember soon, things are getting serious out there and we need someone who can do the job. We’re not your babysitters.” 

“I didn’t ask you to babysit me, jerk.” I shot back.

“Then don’t come cryin’ to me.” He replied and walked off. I sighed, shaking my head.

“Even understanding him a bit, he never was my favorite.”

“Wait, hold up, YOU have a favorite? Who! It better be me!” Margareta said, advancing forward.

“I never said I had a favorite!” I replied, hands up as if to ward her off.

“You just said he wasn’t one!” 

“Meaning I don’t like the guy okay? Don’t read too much into it.” She huffed and left.

“Playing favorites isn’t nice.” Flo said.

“Not nice at all.” Fleur agreed.

“No, it’s not, which is why I don’t have one. I just don’t like him very much.” 

“He is a... difficult one to deal with.” Luther agreed.

“You all are, in your own ways. Some are just more difficult than others due to clash of personality.” I shook my head and opened my eyes, returning back from the conversation. Well, that had been less than enlightening. I briefly wondered if the others were aware of Persona’s presence, it didn’t matter too much if they were. I didn’t imagine that they spoke with each other that often and Persona hadn’t exactly been known to be a social butterfly either. Not to mention their power was different from that of the other Dark Falz. The Dark Falz collective, as the four were known as - since Gemini was counted as one - were made from fragments of the Profound Darkness, but Persona, on the other hand, was not. As far as I was made aware, Persona’s origins came from a timeline where the Guardian had lost the first fight... or rather, had been been forced to kill Matoi to keep the Profound Darkness from taking over her and thus had become a Dark Falz out of pure despair and depression at the loss. 

The original cannon for the game, at least as far as I was aware, had the Guardian being a male with brown hair and eyes. Nothing too special or even unique about him really... at least not in appearance. Very drab and the anime based on the storyline for the game had him as sort of a very typical male protagonist with Matoi being the “damsel in distress” sort of situation. I hadn’t actually sat down to watch the anime and I wish that I had. Maybe then I might have been a little more prepared to handle this world... but then again, who ever thinks to prepare to wake up one day inside of their favorite game or book? The obvious thing that needed doing was clearly to stop the photoners, but what else was I supposed to do? I feel so lost and utterly alone in a world that isn’t one I know... in one I’m a stranger to. 

An anomaly. I’m not sure if I am truly alone or if there are others and I’m afraid to confront the alliance members to find out... but this is beginning to nag at my mind as well. Eventually I will need to confront one of them... to talk to them and see what they have to say... whether they think I’m nuts or believe my story. The trouble is... who do I talk to? Sakura is out of the question and several others I know are as well because they aren’t officially in the alliance itself and I don’t particularly know them all that well either, whether outside rp or just all together. I know Ninavask... but as I was married to him, I’m most afraid of finding the truth by confronting him.

Not because I don’t think he’d mind being in this world with me, if he were, or even that I am in the role of the Guardian would bother him... that isn’t it. I’m afraid of confronting him and finding that he is only the person that my husband created him to be... that he is not my husband. 

That is the most terrifying aspect of all of this. I wish this were just a dream... just some fantasy I could write off or something, but it’s not. I fall asleep here and I wake up here. This is my reality now and no one I have ever known seems to be aware of it. With every day that passes I feel my fear about the truth rising. If I am truly alone... why do I remember my life before? Why do I remember who I am? If I’m not... how many others are there? Who else has been taken from the world we know and why have they been? Is this some sort of strange experiment or is this the afterlife so many religions talk about? Is, perhaps, the afterlife not just another life... but a life in a different place? No, that doesn’t seem to fit. After all, if that were true one would just be reborn again and I wouldn’t remember my life from before. So then, what did that make me? Am I a lost soul? 

I have lost track of the days at this point, of how long I have been here. Each day is grueling and even though I am not physically exhausted from the battles I fight nor do I really feel the stinging pain of my wounds - just one of many indicators that this is my reality now - much from when I mess up in a fight some how. The days blend together, nights are just as indifferent. Every day brings more battles against the photoner fleet. No matter how many times we destroy their machines there are only more. How much longer will this war go on before something gives? I am not certain, all that I am certain of is that Matoi has been talking lately about talking to Xiao about what we can do to trap the photoners. It sounds familiar to me, but I am not sure why. I cannot recall, but something in me feels off about this mission that Matoi wants to go on... something with the Ashmaiden on Harukotan... and I’m supposed to go with her. 

I’ve honed my skills now that I can keep up with Matoi and pass off well enough as if nothing has changed. There’s a strange feeling though in destroying falspawn and machines... it’s almost a methodical thing and I don’t really think much of it, sort of like when one faces a training dummy. There’s not really a sense of threat. The creatures of the various planets, however, are another story. Every time I must visit one I feel my heart beat faster when I am forced to defend myself. Other operatives might not think much of dealing a death blow to an Udan, but I cannot say the same. I have always loved animals, and they are animals to me, not falspawn, not machine.

I can only think about what I should do now, it's a question that I can't shake no matter how I try. One that follows me like a shadow, I have been through a lot in life but never anything like this. Like a child on their first day of school. I am scared, lost and alone. This is a nightmare I can't wake from... I can't escape and I can only cry in my solitude. I dare not cry in front of those I do not know and knowing I can trust them only eases my mind a little. Of all those who seem to keep most close at hand it is the logical minded Luther and Margareta, who had once been Apprentice. They do not say much but they seem to be close at hand most often. Perhaps it is because the two of them are those who most closely relate to what I feel and how I think aside from Persona - who is my opposite in near every way. 

While I do not feel Persona near as I do the other two, I know they are there and unlike the others, watching in silent judgement. They say you are your own worst enemy and yet I have never seen Persona as my enemy - merely an ali whose actions and understanding often follows thoughts I do not act on nor entertain for long for they are dark and often disheartening. I am uncertain of a great many things here, questions I have no answers for. Am I only here temporarily or is this my life now? Can I return to the world I knew? Am I stuck here? How can I beat a power that absorbs the very power of photons that Kaori - and now myself- relies on to cut down opposition? What other power was Persona talking about? I recall having a power back home, over dreams, but it was spotty at best and I could only predict things might happen if I was close to the individual - like really close in terms of knowing them and liking them and only if it was something life changing or life threatening. So that wasn't really helpful either.

I don’t really seem to have an edge here to turn the tide of battle and I feel almost like I have been tossed into a war that cannot be won... is this supposed to be my version of hell? Punishment of sorts for a life that was not lived pure and religiously? I know that I was not a saint or always devout... I just never really could stay the course with anything. I always wandered off track, getting bored after so long of doing the same thing over and over... and how could one truly have blind faith anyway? I wasn’t sure I understood that fully. I was never sure if I ever had such blind faith despite believing in the existence of a higher power. I just knew there was a God... I just never really saw much in the way of miracles in my life or those I knew that proved there was a God that cared. Despite that I’d always been a hard worker and devoted to taking care of the companies I worked for... I’d never been able to have a decent job that both paid well and treated me well... it always seemed to be one or the other, never both. I wanted a job that wasn’t actually work for me... but that, too, had always seemed out of reach. I had wanted to escape my troubles... but not like this. 

It is hard to not cry myself to sleep every evening. I miss my family, my friends... I want to go back to the life I had. Troublesome as it might have been, at least it would not be so lonesome, I would have people I could count on to be there to comfort me through the hardships... not some words of strangers who were programmed to be nice... I’ve been smiling through it all. Working myself to exhaustion so that I don’t have to think at night, throwing myself into whatever I can so I can stop missing the ones who are most dear to me. I don’t feel like myself anymore. I feel like an empty shell and everything just keeps repeating. The battles are the same day in and day out, even if the missions change daily... it’s a grind and I hate it. I don’t want to be here any more. I want my family... my friends... I want that stupid job I don’t quite hate... I’m so frustrated... so helpless... so useless... I can’t win this war for them... I can’t do anything but become another casualty the moment I screw up and enter a fight I can’t win... I’m not a god. I’m not special... I’m just... I’m losing my mind. My sense of self. 

Who am I?

Do I even know anymore?

Am I still me? 

Or am I the reflection in the mirror? 

Am I now her? 

The one I breathed life into?

Is this my curse? 

Why?

What did I do wrong? 

Why me?

Why me?

Why ... 

Me? 


	5. A Light in Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter was created with Wil's help.

I don’t know the date anymore. It doesn’t matter. Every day is the same. The last two days Matoi has been asking me if anything is wrong, but I only shake my head. I can’t tell her. There’s no point. I can tell she knows something is wrong, but she isn’t pushing me to talk. I go about my day. Doing quests, listening to others when they stop to talk and smile and nod, but it’s just an act. I feel.... empty. Like a puppet on strings. I still do not know why I am here. Since the flash of insight on Earth, I have gotten nothing. I have gone back the last two days, just to see if anything else could be triggered... nothing. I was checked out in the medical bay at Matoi’s insistence today, something about all the missions I’ve been doing and F-factor. I don’t really care. I did it just to shut her up. She’s not annoying, don’t get me wrong and it’s not like I hate her, but she worries too damn much. It took them two minutes to check me over and tell Matoi that my F-factor was non-existent and that I was in perfect physical health. She persisted and they did a mental health check too, but I’m perfectly sane. I just don’t feel anything. Is this what it is like to be a living doll? 

To do things everyone expects, but not the way they expect it? To not feel or express any feeling and yet to mimic life by mimicking what others do? Can this be called living? Pain still hurts... I still need to eat, but the tears that I’d cried every evening are gone. As if everything inside of me was frozen. I am not myself. I am not Kaori. I am nothing really. Perhaps to someone else it might almost be comical... seeing the surprise on that young boy’s face... the advocate for the Phantom class - I forget his name. It was not surprise at the fact that I had blocked his attack when he had tested me while I was on a mission in The Ruins of Naverius but at my lack of response to his attack. He seemed... disappointed? As if he was expecting something and instead got nothing. I vaguely had a sense of deja vu. I remembered why hours later. I had played through the final chapter for this game. I sort of remembered what was coming, but not really. Kyokuya. That was his name.

I vaguely remembered that he had considered himself some sort of ‘tough guy’ and treated his friends, Stratos and Lukot, with a cold indifference just because of an event that happened years ago that had damaged their relationship... and the one responsible? Luther of course. Everything always went back to the photoners and their deeds. At this point what isn’t because of the photoners? Their arrogance and misguided ways have caused so much suffering and chaos. They’re responsible for the enemy even existing. The falspawn, the Dark Falz, the Profound Darkness... all of it. None of it would exist if the photoners had not messed around and tried to play god. Countless lives had been disrupted and destroyed. The more I fight the less I have to say. I understand now why Kaori had so little to say at times. When you were in the middle of a seemingly endless war and all you know is this war and learn to fight in it... what is there to say? There should be more to life than this and yet, you know you cannot live it because of the war... because it never ceases. There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide from this war. Like Kaori was alone, so am I. I still don’t know why I’m here. What’s the point? I can’t change this war. I can’t stop it. I don’t have the capabilities and those whose hopes are riding on me... it’s only a matter of time before they wake up and realize I’m not some grand hero...

  
  


I’m just another ARKS who just was in the wrong place at the right time to do some extraordinary things because it was what needed to be done. I’ve since changed my attire from the elegant dress that I had her wear to something a bit more my taste. It wasn’t as modest as I had hoped, however, but it was the best I could afford. It was called Moonlit Night. It is a dark navy outfit that covers me nicely from neck to my hands, though it leaves my fingers exposed and there is a white sort of “glove” pattern on the lower arms that stops on the hand near the wrist with gold outlines and golden buttons. The buttons on the top shirt are gold as is the outline for the pockets. I still wear the eagle necklace though, at least I think it’s still an eagle I can’t be sure. The skirt is a pleated dark lavender, almost black really, it’s far too short for my liking as it doesn’t even reach mid-thigh, not that I can do anything about the length... ugh, all these short skirts were definitely fan-service in the making. 

Either way, it’s not an issue as it doesn’t flare up with movement or anything. It also has something tied to in this maroon ribbon bows... I’m not sure what this side layer is, but it’s sort of a pentagon shape with one side elongated to reach the edge of the skirt. It has a gold border, a white stripe near the top where the hip is and the same dark lavender material as the skirt but with pink dots that go in three rows. I don’t know who thought this was a fashion thing but, whatever. It works. The boots are black with golden diamond shapes that go a bit above the boot hems, golden “m” shapes along the sides in threes down the front and sides. On the sides is a red ribbon that is bow tied near the diamond shapes of the boots. The diamond shape has some odd symbol etched in gold, not one I’ve seen before now and the dark purple and gold patterns on the bottom make the flat boots appear more like high heel boots, but they are not; at least not to a great degree. I could set the blades I used most now to be out of the way of my wings, just sort of hover behind me out of the way, the blades I used often as a fighter were the Nox Nessis. They were called daggers in the game, but they were too long for real daggers. A set of twin black blades with deep purple edges, they were long enough to be swords really. I can’t imagine why the Japanese who made this game decided that something long enough to be a sword would be a dagger if you just put two into a set... did they not know that a dagger was never as long as a sword? Even long daggers were only truly about a third the length of a true sword... well, that’s what one gets apparently when those who do not know their history make a game that includes something of history. 

Not that this world really was a game anymore. As I sat in the lobby, off in thought, on the stairs, I saw a familiar shadow from behind and nearly sighed. Not again.

“Kaori? I thought you were going on a mission.” 

“I haven’t made up my mind which.” I reply. This was not the first time we had this discussion.

“I know the perfect one for you!” She grabbed my arm and hauled me up. This was new, usually she wasn’t so ... was forceful the right word? She dragged me over to the quest counter, picked one out and then all but shoved me through the gate.

“Okay, okay. I’m going.”

“Do your best! I know you will! It will be good for you, you’ll see.” So of course that was how I found myself on a dropship towards... of all things... a cursed destination.

The failed Mothership, a destination that hung in space now at a set point. It was crawling with invaders of all types, falspawn mostly, but there were also esca creatures that would appear there and all the creatures that did appear were infected with F-factor. I didn’t notice the difference really, they were the enemy. It was all I knew and that was good enough for me. It was just another mission... at least, that was what I thought. I wasn't the only ARKS operative who had chosen to come to this cursed vessel to train. I didn’t see what the point was, but Matoi insisted it would be good for me... so here I was. The Nox blades a whirl of motion as I cut down foe after foe... infested Udan, Degan, infected Draconian... it didn’t matter... they all were just targets. A means to an end... but what end?

Wilhelm was fighting his way through the various creatures that would appear around him, having temporarily swapped to his Partisan to make quick work of the weaker enemies. His armor was covered in the blood of the various foes, but after every brief pause in enemies it evaporated. In the distance in front of him, he saw what appeared to be another operative running and killing the creatures just as he was, but as far as he knew it was just another operative. He began running toward her from one of the side paths that met up at the center. Soon as he saw the operative was past the connecting point, three Draconians with swords appeared behind her without warning. Lined right up with them, he swiped his sword, chagrin up his charging technique and shouted “On your six!” He then charged the enemies behind the operative and barreled right into them with all his might, then swinging his sword upward to finish all three off in one final blow. He made quick work of them as more appeared in front of him. He cut those down as well, keeping them off the operative’s back. The way his sword and armor were, they were clearly avatar armament, not standard issue ARKS gear. He kept his sword at the ready for another wave just in case.

The sudden voice close by made her whirl around, but the foe had been felled before it could strike. A second wave of Degan came at them. She whirled back to the enemy, cutting them down. _That’s ... new._ She thought even as she cut down the foe and at last the waves ceased, leaving her and the stranger standing in the empty space that had once been filled with the enemy, a telepipe appearing nearby. Soon as he was confident that was the last of them, his sword disappeared.

“You alright, miss?” He asked as the telepipe appeared nearby. He did not know who she was, that much was obvious.

“I am. Thank you.” 

“That’s good, glad to hear it.” He said and turned to face her. His eyes were a piercing shade of blue, and his hair and facial hair were a brownish blonde and obviously well kept.

“Though I wish the circumstances were different, I’m Wilhelm. It’s nice to meet you and glad to see you are unharmed.” I smiled faintly.

“Kaori.” 

“Kaori... I’ll be sure to remember that.” He said.

“How long have you been with ARKS? Judging by your skill with your blades I’d say it’s been a while.” I sheathed my weapons as he spoke.

“You could say that.” I regarded him a moment.

“You are different. Are you even ARKS? Or are you Earth Guide?” Surely the academy taught new recruits who the Guardians were... right? Yet he did not seem to know who I was and didn’t react with any sort of recognition. After all, I’d found plenty of new recruits over the months who had known me, but he seemed to genuinely not know and I wasn’t sure if it was a relief or not.

“I’m ARKS. Formally joined after graduating a year course at the academy right before Elder’s last appearance. Before that though I was a prospect member for something equivalent to Earth Guide.” 

“Ah, that explains it then.” No wonder, the academy took more than a year to complete, if he’d only done a year then it was likely he either skipped the first week or so or something to not know who I was.

“Yeah... a couple ARKS operatives found me badly wounded and brought me to Thorn’s medbay. That’s how I wound up here in the first place.”

“I see.” I relaxed a little.

“I’ve seen you around. Hmm, the alliance quarters I think it was about a few months ago.” I couldn’t express the relief I felt just then, to be myself and not have the weight of the title behind me... The loss of the stress of that was a bit of a surprise to me. I really didn’t know how heavy a burden it was until I met someone who just didn’t know. I wasn’t about to give up the truth readily either and destroy this small haven. At least not yet.

“I thought you looked familiar. Seemed you were deep in thought, so I didn’t say anything or even nod to you because I feared you would be distracted.” 

“Heh... were that the truth... honestly... I was just scared. I wasn’t sure if I would find what I feared I would... and... I didn’t, it seems silly now, but at the time it felt real. I didn’t know anyone else was there until I saw you nearby and I wasn’t sure if I should even say anything since I didn’t really know you and I was still a bit lost as to what I should do at the time.” It was the honest truth, even if not the whole truth of what I had been doing at the time. It was more than what I’d confided to Matoi or any other.

“Would you like to talk about it?” He asked as he looked around.

“Ideally in a safer location than a corrupted mothership.” 

“Ideally... I suppose. I don’t know if it’s very believable though... I’m living it and I barely believe it some days.” Somehow I found it easier to talk to him than I did to anyone else I’d met... and I wasn’t sure why.

“Try me.” He said as he walked toward the teleporter to get back on the drop ship. I followed him back with a quiet chuckle. The sound a little foreign to me... when was the last time that had happened? Once they were on the drop ship he turned to me.

“So, what’s your story, Kaori?” He asked before depositing items into his storage.

“Hmm, well, to begin with, there’s someone who has a story not too unlike mine... I don’t know if you’ve heard of her. Hitsugi Yasaka.” 

“Yup, I’ve heard of her.” 

“My story starts like hers... I’m a human Earth... just not _that_ Earth.” 

“I see... you’re from another dimension?” 

“Another universe, yes, where everything that has happened to ARKS and those they’ve met is just a game. Like Hitsugi’s Earth, they called the game Phantasy Star Online 2. However, my home is a chaotic mess. It does not know the peace... nor the chaos, hers has. We were not that far ahead in technology because aether does not exist there and while photons exist... they do not have that sort of capacity.”

“In nearly every aspect primitive in comparison, correct?” He asked as though he could identify with me.

“I don’t know if I’d go quite that far... it was behind, yes, but not so far behind to be from the middle ages. There were still cars, iPads... which aren’t too different from the tablets used here... so a few steps behind but not much. No... I’m afraid the biggest shock came in the form of... something different, two somethings actually, the first being Matoi and the second being something that not even she knows.” His armor disappeared and his casual wear appeared to have been beneath.

“Sorry about that, avatar form wore off.” I didn’t really notice as he chuckled.

“I’m familiar with cars and iPads, and the amount of money that goes into them to ensure both function.” He raised an eyebrow though at the last part.

“What happened?” She shook her head.

“For the sake of peace of mind for ARKS, I dare not even begin to utter what it is. The first of course, as you realize, was waking up to a Guardian... and as I imagine you have realized... Kaori isn’t my real name. It’s the name I gave my avatar of this world when I played the game.” 

“Well I must say I am honored to be able to have a one-on-one conversation with a Guardian.” He then thought for a moment. I wasn’t bothered that he realized who I was, it was like the title had no weight to it... no burden. It was a nice change really.

“I wondered what had happened, some of the mannerisms had changed.” I nodded a little.

“I’m not Kaori and she is not really me. In truth... we don’t know what happened. Outside of her, Xiao and Xiera, you are the only other who knows about this.” 

“Don’t worry about a thing, your secret is safe with me.”

“I wouldn’t have spoken if I didn’t think I could trust you with it. It’s just something I saw when we met again.” 

“I’m glad you feel you can trust me.”

“It’s a strange feeling, really, but one of relief I haven’t felt in too long of a time.” 

“Then I take it, that's a really good thing.” I smiled a bit.

“It is.” The smile faded though.

“When I was in the alliance that day. I was looking for signs of my world. I didn’t find them.” 

“I’m sorry you couldn’t find any signs.”

“While it is unfortunate... the worst part is, I’m a stranger, trapped in a world I barely understand... in a war I can’t win.” 

“Then turn the trap into a truth and embrace it. Learn all you can, and live.” He approached her.

“Adapting to life here is a tough thing, but as long as you still breathe, you have both the hope of another day, and the hope you will find the answers you seek.” He paused.

“As for the war... know that you are not fighting alone.” 

“Perhaps... but in coming here, I lost the paradise I had. Could you really say the same if you had lost that much?” Why had she asked that? Letting herself be so vulnerable to someone she didn’t even know... and yet, she needed this desperately... just someone who would tell her that things would be okay, even if they were going to be hard. Even if what was said wasn’t exactly those words her heart ached to hear. 

“I lost everything when I woke up here. I had nothing, knew nobody, and did not even know where I was. A wife, a home, a job, all gone. The soreness I felt in my chest from a wound when I tried getting up too fast that first morning made me quickly realize that I needed to adapt.” The silence that followed was thick with something... what I did not know. I was not sure if I should feel relieved or utterly horrified.

“If I said I understood what you’re going through, I would be lying. I only know my situation, but I’m here for you if you need anything. After all, we are in the same alliance, aren’t we?” He asked that question in a somewhat playful manner to lighten the mood a bit. I could only nod. I wasn’t sure what to even say to such a revelation. His comments earlier now made all the more sense... and made this scenario so much more frightening in a way... how many more? How many actual humans were going to die in a war that I was supposed to win? He didn’t say a word as he closed the distance and brought me into an embrace, a bold move on his part. I barely noticed that I was a full head shorter than he was, the embrace was strong and yet so gentle...

“You are a Guardian, our beacon of hope in these dark and uncertain days. But you are also human, the most resourceful of the races, capable of adapting to and overcoming anything. You have a daunting task before you, but do not lose sight of who you are. You are not fighting alone, let those you trust support you however they can.” I had paled considerably in those few minutes as the truth of things really seemed to sink in.

“I’m sorry I think-” I muttered but the rest was lost as I fell into darkness against the warm embrace.

  
  


When I came around, my head was throbbing... well, that was nothing new was it? I did a mental check of every part of her, well, aside from my head throbbing it seemed that I was physically sound. One of the medical staff came by when I opened my eyes.

“Guardian, you are awake. Apparently you collapsed on the Gateway ship, and that gentleman over there brought you here.” I slowly sat up and glanced over at the staff member.

“Oh, thank you. I guess I was more tired than usual.” I gave the other a reassuring smile before glancing over at Wilhelm who was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, asleep. _He stayed?_ When was the last time I’d had someone show me that kind of care since coming here? Well, okay, Matoi had when she’d thought that I was Kaori... and even that time on Earth when I’d passed out... but still, it wasn’t the same. It didn’t feel quite so genuine as this... why? It wasn’t until a few minutes after the medical staff left the room that Wilhelm woke up and looked over at me.

“Hey... how are you feeling?” I gave a bit of a rueful smile.

“Like someone dropped a planet on me.” There was a bit of some vague humor in the tone.

“That would have been me tripping while carrying you. Sorry.” He seemed to have caught on to the vague humor.

“Seriously though... make sure you are getting plenty of rest. You must have been exhausted.”

“I think it was more shock than anything honestly.”

“I was just as shocked as you were when I found out I wasn’t the only one.” 

“The last thing I remember is wondering how many more would die... and then, feeling dizzy and realizing I was likely about to pass out on you.” 

“I wish I had that answer to give you, truly I do. All I can do is promise to protect all I can.” He then nodded. 

“Good thing I didn’t let go then.”

“Heh, lucky me then. A real life knight in shining armor.”

“It’s been tested so it isn’t as shiny, but thanks for the compliment.” She chuckled a little.

“Those were so rare even from our home... I can only imagine how more it is here.”

“From what I could see, I’m one of the only ones who uses that kind of armor in battle, and it is my avatar form. As for character, I don’t know. Only place I heard of chivalry being a thing is on Omega.” 

“And that was just a ‘dream’ made up by the Akashic Records. It wasn’t even truly a real place.” 

“Yeah...” He shrugged.

“I’m just me.”

“Well, it’s an honor to meet such a rare breed.”

“Well I’m honored and flattered that you think of me in such a way.” 

“You act, therefore you are.” There was a moment’s pause before I continued.

“It seems your words have stood true for you, if not for me. You seem to have kept sight of who you are... but I have been lost.” _It was strange... hearing my name being called... and seeing her instead of seeing it reflected in a mirror..._

  
  


~Flashback~

_Kaori stood before her, in all the elegance and eloquence she had been made to be. Her silvery lavender eyes were soft, understanding but determined._

_“You haven’t forgotten, have you?”_

_“I can’t remember... I’m sorry. I’ve tried so hard... but I can’t win a war that was beyond you. I’m not even anywhere close to what you were. I’m just an old woman who did nothing of value with her life.”_

_“Yet you gave me life, did you not?”_

_“I’m not you!”_

_“Aren’t you? Perhaps our roads were different, in life, but did you not give me breath? Did you not show me the light of way? Guide my actions as your own? Did you not cry when we lost Xion... but rejoiced when we pushed back the darkness? Did you not feel pain when we lost Xiao even if only for that brief moment?”_

_“... I don’t understand.”_

_“You promised and I know you will keep that promise because we have never made a promise we did not intend to keep.”_

~End~

Who was this man, truly, who had suffered as much as I had? Who had been forced from our world to this one? As I sat there, in thought about the dream, something seemed to click in my mind and I felt myself pale again as the realization came to me. The words I had spoken in that dream, to Kaori... what if... I locked eyes with Wilhelm.

“I... I think I know how I got here...”

“Oh?” He asked as he adjusted the way he was sitting. 

“When I was out... I had a conversation with her... with Kaori... and it occurred to me I was older than her.. I think.” I hesitated.

“I think I died.”


	6. Start of a Plan and the Memory

What was supposed to be just another mission for me turned out not so ordinary after all. Before I came to this world I had never fainted in my life... and in under about five months - give or take - I had done so twice. Once while remembering something and a second time when the truth of the true fatality of this world that was on me came to light. Granted, I am just a human... one who wasn’t dealing with the stress of all this very well to begin with. I had lost my way. Lost who I was in the darkness of my own thoughts, with no one to comfort me, to help support me... and then I met him. Someone just like me - so to speak - and there was just such sure conviction in him that I wasn’t sure how I’d missed it a few months ago when I had seen him in the alliance quarters. Now, here I was, sitting in the medical bay with him. Voicing my thoughts about how I might have come to this world... a dark theory but a very plausible one nonetheless and even though it should have shaken me to the core, just being able to look into his eyes and see another person looking back and just knowing that I was being understood was enough to ground me in the moment. 

“This can’t be an easy topic... but I want to at least thank you, for what you’ve done.”

“No, it is not an easy topic by any means, but your theory may be a sound one, and the powers we have would make that seem plausible too.” He smiled.

“I’m glad to be able to help you however I can.” 

“As bad as this is... it is some relief to have someone to talk to, that I can actually connect with. Not that Matoi and the others aren’t nice and all, but... they just can’t understand.”

“A little bit of relief goes a long way.” He smiled.

“I always thought the Guardian would be someone that I couldn’t identify with like this. And to actually meet her? That is a dream come true to be honest.”

“Now who’s flattering who?” I replied with a smile and a slight flush, at least it felt like it. I was highly flattered he’d say something like that.

“I’m only speaking the truth here. You are what ALL ARKS operatives aspire to be as strong as. You are the one they all look up to for leadership. They all have faith in your strength. To me it sounds like you need more people in your life that believe in you... not what you do or what you’ve become, but you as a person.”

“Hmm, trouble is there aren’t exactly a lot of those I can just tell the truth to. Morale around here would plummet faster than a bowling ball down a cliff if the truth got out.”

“This is true, but finding people you can trust is always a good start. I know we just met and all, but I have faith in you, and believe that isn’t going to be a misplaced faith.”

“I sincerely hope you’re right.” 

“I believe I am.” He smiled.

“Gotta believe in yourself too.” I knew he was right, but that wasn’t so easy... it never had been, not for me anyway.

“I think I’ve been short on that... even after speaking to Persona.” 

“Seems like you may need time away to clear your head a bit then.” He paused.

“I think I know just the place.”

“Oh?” I then rubbed my forehead as I felt like someone had kicked me. I frowned and grumbled to the unspoken entities trying to get my attention.

“Knock it off, he isn’t going to think I’m crazy.” 

“Let me guess... Apprentice giving you trouble, or is it Elder?”

“Oof... yeah... that would be Elder. Shush you, I’m not going to repeat myself.” He chuckled.

"My castle on Earth is nice and secluded, a good place to go and unwind, relax, and take a break of fresh, unterraformed air." I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrows at that, faint amusement coming into my tone.

“A knight with a castle... now I know I’m in a fairy tale.” He smiled.

“I assure you, this is no fairy tail. If it was, it wouldn’t have been hell to get where we both are right now?” 

“Oh? Haven’t you read Grimm’s fairy tales?” I asked with a chuckle as I got to my feet. The original fairy tales, they were very dark indeed. It was what generations before him and I had grown up knowing; meant to scare children into obedience than to entertain.

“I have. Disney has some explaining to do.” He laughed as he stood.

“So why was Elder giving you a hard time just now?” 

“He was the one most adamant that anyone who knew would think the Guardian was crazy. As he’s said before, once to Kaori and once to me - in so many words - when they realized I was not her. As it is, surprisingly, Luther and Apprentice have been my closest companions since I got here.”

“Now that is surprising. For the record though, I do not think you are crazy.” He smirked.

“I think Elder is for thinking that people would think you are.” I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“He does not seem to agree. Though I think it’s because we know the lore that it is not insane to us, but to the rest of those here it may very well be. As for those two... well, I’m an intellectual woman. I went to college, so my intellectual mind intrigues Luther... while I think Margareta is just glad she’s not the only woman around anymore who has power - so to speak.” 

“Luther has knowledge and Margareta has grace. They can relate with you it seems.” 

“Precisely. Though I am not sure the two related to Kaori as they do me. Kaori was a woman, yes, but neither she nor I had actual grace so much as just knowledge that only females have. I think, considering all things, she likely related most to Margareta and Gettemhult, who recognizes and respects power.” 

“Now that you mention it, I can see that in her.”

“It was naturally written in script, but I’ve been... as they say, off script since I got here.” 

“That’s usually the best way to go sometimes.” 

“In all honesty... it’s the only way I can. I know what’s going to happen moments before it does, because I’ve been through all of this, from the beginning to the end... but whatever force brought me here is blocking select memories so I can’t know too much... if that makes sense.” 

“And that is probably for the best. We all know what too much knowledge can do to a person. Looking at you Luther.” 

“He’s not disagreeing with you there. Though he found it amusing that I surprised the Phantom advocate with my reaction... which, looking back, couldn’t have been more off script if I’d tried.”

“Sometimes the best things in life are unexpected. We never know what the next opportunity will be, who we will meet, who we will wind up falling in love with, the list goes on and on. It’s like a picture that is never fully completed.”

“True, but I’m pretty sure Kaori didn’t nearly scare the kid to death when they met originally. He was not ready for what I was when we met. Honestly... I can’t thank you enough for the bonk on the head. I needed some sort of wake up call.”

“I’m glad I could help you just as you’ve been helping all of us. When the time comes for the final battle, know I’ll be right there with you as a shield so you can be the sword that cuts the darkness.” 

“You’ve got this all planned out don’t you?” I smirked a little. I wasn’t at all serious, I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to rib my new friend just a little. This was how the best of friends started out, wasn’t it?

“My attack power is next to nothing compared to my defensive ability in battle. All I’m good for is taking a beating.” He laughed.

“But no, I don’t have it planned. I can think about stuff all I want, but to actually plan? I suck at that.” 

“I got you to laugh though. Mission accomplished.” I grinned.

“And I got you to smile, which I believe you should do more often. It suits you well.”

“Silver tongue there mister, not a surprise someone snapped you up.”

“I’m not trying to be silver-tongue, I’m just calling it like I see it.”

“Ah, a natural then. Don’t even have to try.” He shrugged.

“I guess not. Seems any time I try to flatter or anything I fall flat in the process.” 

“Interesting... I’m guessing it’s natural because you’re one of those that sees the beauty in everything and so you say it without thinking about it... because when you think about it your mind starts seeing more and fumbles over itself trying to process it all.” 

“Yup, that’s precisely why I haven’t tried telling you that you are prettier than I thought the Guardian would be.” He laughed.

“Ah, that’s still nice to hear. I did make her lovely... more so than I was myself because I could and society expects it.” She chuckles.

“Either way, it’s true and people don’t deserve to see if they can’t acknowledge it.”

“True. Were I anywhere half as elegant as I created her to be, perhaps more people would have taken notice of me.” I couldn’t help but admit - to myself at least - that this day had changed things for me. I had lost myself completely to my surroundings and who I was, as bad as this truth was... I realized that with it I came to my senses and it was because of a new friend. Someone I had been waiting for, even though I hadn’t really known it, who had the courage to lend me the strength I needed to take the plunge over the edge to find out the truth.

I might not have known who he was, but he was what I needed at the time that we met on that mission; a source of inspiration and at the same time, someone with a strength I didn’t have. I’ll always be grateful that he was put in my path. Even if I didn't know why such a chivalrous and noble individual looked up to someone like me. I wasn't The Guardian whose place I had taken but at the same time, his words reminded me that even if I wasn't her I still had to and could do my best. The war wasn't over until the last of us fell. I had no intention of being cut down and bf had said he would be my shield so that I could be the blade to fell our enemy. I am determined now to uphold his words. If someone like him can see me like that then it's a duty that I have to uphold. There's no turning back. It is time to find a way to turn this war back to our favor and I am not alone... I never was, even though I felt I was. I just needed to be reminded of this. Even as it was in a way that made me feel worse temporarily... as it was said, sometimes a wound must feel worse before it can get better.

This boost was one I had desperately needed and a simple helping hand from someone who truly understood was the cure I needed to push on. I might have lost it all, but I was all the hope some had. I could have my break down once this war was over, until then there was still work to be done and it was mine to do. After we parted as friends, I made a point to make the difference I needed to. I went to Matoi the next day.

"Are you alright?! I heard what happened, I am so sorry-" I held up a hand, interrupting her.

"No, that was the best thing that happened to me. I am sorry about what has happened recently but I got the wake up I needed and I am ready to end this war." She smiled, relieved.

"I'm so glad you've alright." I nod.

"I am better now so let's get to work."

"Yeah!" It was good to see her in high spirits again. I threw myself into my work, training harder than ever and sharpening my skills with the blade so that I was unparalleled as much in Fighter class as I was as a Summoner. I even began training in some of the other classes as well. I had a knack for Etoile, but Phantom seemed a bit beyond me with its use of techniques. I still didn’t quite have those down yet and how they worked exactly. While I wasn’t a sharpshooter I didn’t do too bad as a Braver with a bow. I tried out Hero a bit, but its reliability on the versatility of weaponry threw me off some. Still, I want to be better... to be the best that I can be and pray that it’s enough when the final showdown appears... we’ve been planning on trapping Shiva on Harukotan, we’ll need the Ashmaiden’s help. We’re heading out there tomorrow, Matoi and I. The best ops the fleet has is covering for our lack of being there. No doubt the enemy would strike and hard if it knew that the fleet was without its strongest protectors. So we won’t leave the usual route to the dropships to get to Harukotan. I admit that it had been the first time I’d been to such a meeting. Not only was the Council of Six there, but the Admiral and her second, Xiao, Sarah, Xiera, the two of us and all the Lieutenants. Even Risa and Harriette made an appearance. I was mostly silent in the meeting, I had recalled, the moment we entered, how this meeting would go... and what it meant. It was mostly a revelation about Harriette’s creation and why she was made, of course I knew Luther was responsible and he didn’t deny it. He seemed most intrigued that I knew this before anyone else and how I knew even though I could not explain it fully in a way that he would understand. 

It was clear to me I was now Shiva’s target. For some reason, one not known to anyone there, but I had a theory on that. I had traveled through time. Of course this meeting had happened during the time when I was depressed and I had little to offer in the meeting. I hadn’t really cared much unfortunately and had later startled the advocate for the Phantom class. I remembered vaguely that I’d supposed to have helped the AIS researcher, but that hadn’t happened. It was something I would do soon enough. I told Matoi I would do so before we set out. After helping the researcher with their research with the AIS, we slipped on the dropship that would take us to Harukotan. As I stood there, watching the stars go by outside, I felt a sense of anger at Shiva rise as I recalled the many who had fallen before her; treated as less than what they were simply because of her own selfish desires. It might have been wrong, what the photoners did all those years ago, but two wrongs did not make a right. Slaughtering the innocent would not change what had happened. I thought about the point that I had entered this world... in the middle of a war, just after Xiao had been revived from his slumber in Sarah... or rather, now that I thought about it... I had seen a glimpse of something else when I had entered this place. It hadn’t not been Matoi that I had first seen... but the glimpse of a cavern and a sense of desperation to help friends... That was it! I suddenly understood. I closed my eyes and it was then that it came back to me. The memory that had been eluding me... well, some of it anyway.

  
  
  


~Flashback~

_I stood in a plane that was unlike any I had ever seen before... and yet, I knew what this place was. The blue water beneath me was comfortable and felt different from water in a way I cannot truly describe. In front of me, her left hand clutching her right side, was Kaori. Her silvery lavender eyes filled with pain and desperation._

_“ ... I need your help.”_

_“Kaori? What can I do? I... don’t understand... where are we?”_

_“A place between worlds... someone has to take up the fight. I can’t do this any longer. I am not strong enough.”_

_“What are you talking about? Are you saying your world is real?!”_

_“It is... and you must fight in my place. You must take my place and defeat the photoners... save my world, my friends... please... I beg of you. Promise me you will do this!”_

_“But I’m no one special... I can’t- ... I’m not sure I can do anything at all. I’m just an old woman.”_

_“You are more than that, you know. You have the ability to take my place... to do what needs to be done. Promise me you will.”_

_“I promise.”_

~end~

I felt determination steel inside of me, growing like a wildfire in dry brush. I would keep the promise I made. Persona was right. I have never made a promise I had no intention of keeping. I was going to find a way to take the photoners down, one way or another... or I was going to perish trying. 

“That look... what is it?” I turned to Matoi.

“I’ve remembered something, but now is not the time. We have a mission to complete. When this is over with I will tell you.” She nodded. This mission we were going on now was Matoi’s idea. To bring Shiva down to our level. It was as the ship entered the planet’s atmosphere we got a call from Xiao.

“Careful you two. Something’s not right about Harukotan.”

“Not right...” Matoi began.

“it can't be.” She ran over to the port window and I followed.

“I don’t want to assume the worst, but it’s possible the photoners have already invaded.” Xiao said as we gazed out. There wasn’t much to see, but with this possibility, Matoi and I sprinted for the telepool and dove in. The moment we arrived we ran through the streets, weapons drawn, it was as Xiao had said and as we had feared. The machines of the photoners were everywhere... 

“No...!” I felt myself what she expressed as we stood looking at the swarm of enemies before us.

“How horrible! They’ve ransacked Harukotan!” It seemed that way to me as well. As we got ready to do battle, the voice of our enemy rang out.

“Oho, you certainly took your time.” So Shiva had been waiting for us? Was this a trap? We looked around, she was hovering in her chair, just beyond the group we had been getting ready to wipe out. This didn’t look good.

“Shiva?! Why are you here?” 

“I grew tired of our little game, so I decided to make things more interesting.” I didn’t like the sound of that. 

“I imagined you would make an appearance eventually, but you were quite slow.” 

“What did you do with the Daybreakers?” I asked, even as I did though I feared I knew the answer and my heart sank a little as I got that answer.

“I believe I have cleared up all of the rubbish I could find.” She snapped her fingers, the sound of one of the machines appearing made us turn only to see a Daybreaker that had originally escaped, but we were too far away to even begin to be of any help as the poor innocent soul was struck down.

“Much like that.” I was angered and appalled at how ruthlessly selfish our enemy was. We turned back to Shiva.

“I won’t forgive you!” Matoi yelled, letting loose an attack. It didn’t work though as it was intercepted by a machine at Shiva’s whim, taking the brunt of the blow and exploding. I felt my anger grow as our enemy simply laughed.

“Ill-tempered aren’t we.” I really did not like her.

“Refuse that scuttles about is rather annoying. It is about time we finish cleaning.” 

“Speak for yourself. The only garbage here is the one that thinks it’s above everyone else.” I shot back, I’d had more than enough of this even as we were surrounded by more and more of the machines. I tightened my grip on my blade. I’d defeated thousands of these things by now. I was ready for a fight... but Xiera came over the comms.

“Kaori! Matoi! The enemy forces are gathering! Hurry and retreat!” I didn’t think there was anywhere we could run to, however, even as we beat a hasty retreat.

“You think it that easy?” I heard Shiva call out and I knew that no, it wouldn’t be. We were likely going to have to fight our way out of this... and I was right. We cut through machine after machine that blocked our path as we continued forward, but with each one we destroyed more appeared to take their place. As we were surrounded, what looked like grey dirt began to swirl around us and I shielded my eyes against it as it grew bigger and bigger. I wasn’t sure for a moment what this was and then it clicked... Sukunahime! And with the “dirt” dispersing all the enemies were gone as well, just like that, with the exception of Shiva who was still some distance away.

“Oh?” It seemed our Ashmaiden friend was alive and well, much to my relief.

“Sukunahime!” Matoi seemed to share my relief that the planet’s deity was still alive and well.

“You must be the guardian of this planet. I do not know where you have been hiding all this time, but are you to be my next opponent?” Instead of answering, Sukunahime snapped open her fan and with a motion, the two of us and her disappeared in a swirl of her magical ash. When the magic dispersed, Matoi and I found ourselves in a place we had not seen before. It had golden hills and fog along the ground, trees sprouted around; it seemed that this was some sort of forest? The fog flowed across the ground, like water moving downhill.

“Where are we?” Matoi asked. 

“That’s a good question.” 

“This is Kakuriyo. A land situated in the divide between our world and the next.” The answer, of course, came from our friend and we turned to her. The Ashmaiden was about as tall as I was, she had fair skin, dark brown eyes, but her dress was not one I had seen anywhere else. It looked like a normal dress with fancy patterned sleeves with aged golden patterns amidst blue and white material, but the bodice was white with a navy outline and was secured by navy colored strings the crisscrossed beneath her neck and likely tied behind. Beneath the bodice was what looked like a belt of sorts in navy blue but had a medallion of the same aged gold with a tassel that hung down over her middle. The material beneath was two parts. The inner layer was a deep navy with floral patterns along it and a small slit up the side of the leg for movement while the second layer was pleated white and navy blue that interchanged, the navy having a white border that went down it while the white had a navy border. Her gloves were also navy but lacked the finger tips. Her hair was mostly black, but part of her left side faded into white. She had a horn on her head much like a Deuman would but it was different in coloration, looking more flesh colored than the usual black Deuman had. She also wore some sort of ordinate in her hair that I am not familiar with. It was fancy and was likely just one more piece to state her high status. Sukunahime wasn’t just the guardian of Harukotan, she was its deity too. Matoi rushed forward, and I didn’t blame her really, Matoi really was worried for Sukunahime. It was just how she was, she worried.

“Sukunahime! You’re alright! ... but the Daybreakers were...” I could see the guilt in her as she looked away from our friend, I knew the feeling, but there was nothing we could have done.

“Ever the quick one to jump to conclusions. Matoi, look there.” She indicated the near distance and a samurai figure we knew well was walking towards us. Dressed in dark navy and white with aged gold trim and patterns. He’d always been larger than us, heck I barely came up to his knee honestly in terms of height and he reminded me of a flesh colored ogre in his bulky features but he had yellow horns on his head that were only a couple shades darker than his hair and he wore a dark navy mask over his eyes. How he actually saw was beyond me, but I was pretty sure he was actually blind. 

“Huh? Kotoshiro?” Matoi seemed surprised to see him, but I only felt relief that Matoi’s conclusions were unfounded. Even if we could not help one Daybreaker, at least they all had not perished at the hands of the photoners. That was something at least. 


	7. The Plan

The massive being stopped several feet from us.

“Yes, it has been a while. There are others too, gathered beyond here.” Looking around we saw other Daybreakers in the distance. So, some of them had escaped even if not all of them had.

“You must think of this as our sanctuary. While it is a sacred place, this is necessary.” Sukunahime said.

“Lady Sukunahime was quick to sense the arrival of the tyrannical one and relocated everyone here to Kakuriyo.” It was a measure of relief really to know this. 

“Not everyone was saved. Even I am not that all-powerful. The casualties were... many. Still it is better than the fate the Nightfallers met.” That wasn’t good news. The Nightfallers were a part of this planet too... what had happened to them? Did I want to even find out? I wasn’t so sure.

“If only we’d arrived sooner...” Matoi began. Sukunahime turned to her.

“The blame isn’t yours. Had you arrived earlier the outcome would remain largely unchanged. That rogue bears incredible power. You would... no, I fear even I am no match.” I watched as she looked away from us, this had to be difficult for her to admit as much as it would be for us. The three of us having not known an equal in power until now. She turned back to us.

“Tell me all you know of this being.” Matoi and I glanced at each other and nodded. We had come here for a reason after all. Our friend listened as we explained what we knew of Shiva and the two photoners that served her, of our fight against them and struggles. By the time we were done, she had settled on Kotoshiro’s shoulder to sit, the tale having taken us some time to explain.

“I see. It was those who birthed ARKS. They gave rise to something extraordinary.”

“That’s what Xiao told us. Shiva’s power comes from their near-infinite photon abilities.”

“A real pain for us.” I put in.

“We thought if you... if you used the Scared Seal to seal her... we might stand a chance.” Matoi went on. This was the reason that we had come. 

“An idea befitting that child. You’d used a similar scheme to bind Matoi’s powers when she went berserk.” I nodded, it was how, in the story, that Matoi had been bound and part of how she had been freed from it.

“My power and the photons you use. They bear some similarity, so you could make use of it.” She hopped down from where she sat.

“Very well. Would you accept a request of mine?” A request? What could she wish in return? I nodded, if it was in our power to do so we would help. Matoi echoed this sentiment.

“Sure. We’ll help however we can!” 

“Ahah, what earnest sincerity.” She then stepped close to us and began to speak... when she was finished, she used her magic to send us from that sacred place and off to the seal that kept Magatsu in slumber. Many times, before he had been sealed again, had I fought Magatsu... but it was very different being here at the actual seal than seeing it through a screen.

“This place sure brings back memories. I never imagined we would have to protect it again.” Matoi said as we looked around and back at the large stone seal. I glanced behind me to look for myself. The large stone was surrounded by magic that swirled in text I couldn’t really read and was only a part of a large pillar of light that was the seal. The plan was to lure Shiva out to the place where the seal was, to protect it until Shiva arrived; once she had, we were to destroy the keystone... it was a trap for her. She had told us it would be dangerous, but we did not hesitate. After all, an ARKS’ job was always dangerous. Soon the enemy appeared and the fight began. Matoi sending blasts while I rushed in, swinging my blades to cut down our opponents and dodging their attacks. Even after the first wave was decimated a second appeared to take their place and the fight continued, there was even a really large luminmech with them and the fight intensified.

“Keep your eyes open as you fight!” Matoi called as she leapt away from one of the flashy attacks. I dodged away from a blow, using the momentum to take down one of the many smaller foes with the swing of my blade. There seemed to be no end to our foes, but I continued to fight, using all the skills that I had honed against the simulations on the ship... on the weaker enemies in the forests of Naverius and had wielded many times now against these machines. It was with the destruction of that group that another showed up, this time Shiva was with them.

“No sooner had you vanished into thin air than you appear here in this remote location... One that holds something of great importance. It would not happen to be that large stone in the back, would it?” Even as she asked, Matoi and I lunged forward, cutting through the machines she brought with her.

“Putting up quite the fight, aren’t we... However, it is not enough.”  _ That’s what you think.  _ Even as we rushed forward to deal with more of the enemy she let out a large blast that shot right past me and slammed into the keystone. I looked back... had she just done the job for us?

“The keystone! ... But we’ll be fine, right?” Matoi asked. I nodded, I had faith in Sukunahime’s words. After all, none of our allies had ever had cause to lie to us. We had to trust that the Ashmaiden knew what she was doing.

“Such a trifling matter. Now for you.” She had no idea what she had just done... Before she could do more than raise her hand to strike at us, the ground began to shake. She glanced around, unaware of what was going on though we knew.

“An earthquake...?” Then we heard Sukunahime as her magic ash swirled near us.

“Do you not see? Your actions have angered the land.” She appeared before the two of us as she spoke.

“Magatsu is a wicked god, but is a god nonetheless. And where else would a god unleash its indignance, but upon the ones who blaspheme it.” Massive as ever, Magatsu rose from the dark energy that had been released from the seal. Its many faces staring down Shiva. I remembered fighting this entity, it had never really been an easy battle.

“Now face the consequences of your actions.” To our surprise our friend merged with Magatsu and attacked Shiva and her minions. Matoi was worried, of course, but I understood as Sukunahime explained that they were two halves of a whole... the will of the planet. We simply watched as the two fought against Shiva, but it was not enough... even the power of a god was no match for Shiva. 

“I told you it was futile. I am the ruler of this universe. How could the god of but a single insignificant planet possibly compare?” Was this in the plan too? I felt anger at Shiva’s arrogance.

“Such irreverence is deserving of certain death.” With a single blow Magatsu fell and dispersed, dropping Sukunahime to the ground. I can’t say that I was entirely surprised... after all, if I could deal with Magatsu on my own it should be nothing for Shiva, but with the power of Sukunahime behind it? I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t have trouble if I had to face them combined. Shiva stood over our fallen friend.

“An impressive toy indeed, though still nothing but a toy. Now perish along with it.” Was Magatsu really gone for good or merely sleeping again? Matoi called out in concern, but Sukunahime just began to laugh, which puzzled Shiva.

“Laughing in the state you are in... have you gone insane?”

“On the contrary, I am filled with laughter at the thought of a god being made light of.” Was the reply.

“Magatsu has felt your power clearly upon its body! It has been etched into its very soul! ... That is why!” It was then that Kotoshiro showed up with the small version of our friend. 

“Kotoshiro, now!” The small doll figure said.

“Right!” He drew his sword where he stood, where the seal had been, and plunged it into the ground, the ash magic rising in a swirl briefly only to fade and the doll was replaced by Sukunahime herself, she flared her fan as she spoke.

“By the energy inflicted... I call forth the Sacred Seal! Gather ash and embody tranquility!” As she spoke the magic burst forth from where it had sealed the stone and surrounded the three of us.

“Accept your defeat!” Shiva said, sending a blast at Matoi, but a blast from Clarrisa nullified it and I sent my own attack at her. She dodged the blast and sent a second at me but a blast from my blade, a technique, nullified her attack just as Matoi had moments before.

“What?!” She seemed surprised. Our plan had worked and the trap had been sprung, even if not quite as planned.

“We are... evenly matched?! No... my strength has decreased?!” 

“Correct you are, foul rogue! The Sacred Seal has been conjured here for that very purpose!” Sukunahime called.

“You disparaged us as a mere single planet... but do not belittle the power of a god, impudent child!” 

“... I see. It seems I have been remiss. This power is an impediment to our cause. Therefore... I must personally see to its demise!” She summoned her chair to her.

“Your time is up!” I replied as I gripped my swords. This was going to be a fight, even evenly matched, but it was going to give me and Matoi a chance to shine. To use our skills and wits to get the better of this ‘so called ruler of the universe’ and be done with this nonsense once and for all! Even as the battle began, however, I felt a sense of foreboding.

“Let’s finish what Sukunahime started and put an end to Shiva right here!” I nodded and rushed forward into battle, despite my misgivings. It was not an easy fight by any means and I knew I’d have some burns and scrapes from this, but we were victorious. As she stood from a massive blow from us, she spoke, seeming to be crippled from it.

“To think that my power would be sealed off, and I be weakened... haha, ahahaha. Bravo, vessel of the world, I out not have underestimated you.” What did those words even mean? Why did Shiva call me that? I wondered if I would have my answers when this was all over... or never have them. I felt a chill as her next words came.

“... As long as it is I who falls.” With that she fell back into the ground.

“What does she mean?” Sukunahime asked, I wondered that as well... and I dreaded the answer.

“This.” Came a familiar voice behind us. I whipped around at the voice only to see Sukunahime cut down by Shiva.

“L-lady Sukunahime!” Kotoshiro drew his sword only to be blasted into the rock side nearby by Shiva.

“Sukunahime! Kotoshiro!” Matoi called out in shock and concern. I glanced back at the prone figure and my feelings of foreboding were realized... we had not beaten Shiva after all, but that imitating nuisance, Mitra. Varuna appeared and knelt at the now prone Mitra, who had lost her disguise.

“You performed admirably, Mitra.”

“I don’t feel very admirable. It just hurt a lot. Still, it could have been bad if I didn’t go ahead.” Shiva appeared at her side then.

“I am grateful for your devotion, Mitra... Truly, you have done well.” 

“Your gratitude is wasted on me. This is my duty.” She then turned her head to Varuna.

“Varuna, it’s up to you now.” He nodded.

“I will do my utmost.” I felt like this was a scene out of some movie, from a fallen hero rather than a fallen villain. As if these three were fighting for others instead of their own selfish whims... When I had learned the truth of Shiva’s existence, I was only more angered at the photoners for the atrocity they had committed, but... they were gone now and destroying what remained was not going to change history. It was not going to give her back the time that she had lost. In their arrogance, the photoners had been cruel... selfish creatures. Even when they had gotten the fate they deserved, they still had left a massive impact on the universe they had left behind. It seems our plan had failed, the enemy had still been one step ahead of us. 

“Rest well, Mitra.” Shiva said as the figure became photons that drifted away into the atmosphere and beyond. I stood ready for another fight, but even as Varuna stood, Shiva didn’t turn. Instead she merely spoke.

“With calculating abilities on par with myself, your next move would be to find a concrete countermeasure. One that was sure to be cunning. Mitra proposed and investigation into it. I placed my complete trust in her. A barrier that seals a single target’s photons. Quite the spectacle, for the work of a god of but a single planet. And all the more reason to keep reliable subordinates. Now, I must repay her unwavering faith.” She turned around finally to face me, Matoi was kneeling next to Sukunahime.

“You who were able to defeat Mitra. I will spare nothing.” The dread I felt only deepened.

“I will kill everyone here.” She started with me. I wasn’t fast enough to block the blow and was knocked off my feet. Matoi moved to protect me, blasting at Shiva in vain as she summoned an attack to put an end to me.

“No?!” She felt to the dirt beside me... was this how it ended? To be taken down in a single blow as I had once done to some of the enemies in Naverius? Was I to return to dust here? Even as I winced from the pain I felt, a doubt swelled inside me against the thoughts. Wil had said he would be my shield... he wasn’t here... it was just the two of us... he had said he would protect me and even though he was a stranger, he was ARKS. I had put my faith in the words he had given me. I had to have faith that when the final battle did come, he would be there at my side, fighting to exist. To live. For peace. Yet, I could not move even as I heard Matoi’s voice.

“Kaori! Run!” The energy crackled as it grew and I knew something was going to happen, but I had faith. We were going to survive... I was going to be fine... I struggled to sit up. I was not going down so easily. No, I was a Guardian. I am the hope of all of ARKS and I was not going down to some arrogant photoner who was just as arrogant and selfish as those who had come before her. I scooted back from the blast that came at me, in a flash of white, however, was a surprising revelation to our foe as much as to me. The Dark Falz had appeared and had shielded me from the blast, nullifying it.

“Oho. Come to think of it, you obtained that power once upon a time.” Shiva said as she looked at the five figures that stood in opposition to her now. There was still the sixth... it was not ‘one time’ as she had said... and I knew this. Persona was still with me.

“Having the complete Dark Falz ensemble before me is rather delightful.” She went on, she didn’t know that they were not really complete... only complete as far as she knew. Persona was one of them but they were not present now. While the others vanished, Gettumhult charged forward to attack Shiva, but of course his brute strength was no match for her as she simply stopped the attack.

“However, have you forgotten? About the origin of that power?” She cut him down. Luther appeared to one side of her and attempted to use the blades of time against her - at least that was what I had come to know them as since they froze time itself. The blades hit but it was not enough either as she appeared at his side, continuing her monologue.

“The Dark Falz were born of The Profound Darkness.” She had frozen him in time and cut him down. Margaretta was the next to try, sending out her mechanical insectoids towards Shiva who just went on.

“In other words, theirs is The Profound Darkness’ power.” Margareta attacked with the machines, but they were cut down as well.

“Children cannot triumph against their parents.” I disagreed, for there was even a time when a parent would become as frail as a child and their children would be as strong as the parent had been and thus could rise up against them... but now was not yet that time. With a giggle, Shiva was devoured by one of the two children, I did not see which as I struggled to get to my feet during all of this. Yet instead of being devoured, she cut her way free, cutting down the twins.

“ARKS. Dark Falz. All of them are under my dominion.” I disagreed. ARKS were not her toys to dispose of. We were a force not created from photoners... but because  _ of _ them. We were the force that rebelled against what the photoners had wrought and we were not going to simply bow down to the likes of her anymore than we had to the Dark Falz. ARKS had come a long way since the first encounter and sealing of Dark Falz Elder.

There had been bumps along the way, sure, but we had not cowed before the Dark Falz. We did not cow before The Profound Darkness. We were not going to go quietly into the night before her either. How was it that she failed to comprehend this? That we were our own spirit, just as a child was its own individual and we were not a part of her at all. We were separate. We always had been and we always would be.

“You’re wrong.” I managed to get out and she turned towards me again. I had gotten to my feet. I met her gaze defiantly.

“Hmm?” I felt the power well within me and I did not fight it. I let it flow. The power of the one who was within me.... Persona, emerged. Persona and I were one, after all. She and I were never apart from each other now since freeing her from the clutch of The Profound Darkness. Our will as one. 

“That appearance... are you a Dark Falz?” She did not know, and beneath the helped that covered my face now I felt a grin cross my features as I gripped the blade that had appeared... a gunblade that was surrounded in the F-factor photons that swirled inside me now. A power that lay dormant and would not appear except when truly needed. Persona and I were not going down without a fight.

“I am not familiar with your existence...”  _ Of course not... because we were not borne from you or The Profound Darkness... we made ourselves. _ With that thought in mind, I rushed forward to cross blades with her. She blocked every blow I tried, unfortunately.

“Regardless, you pose no threat to me.” I was blasted back, not by a killing blow, but it was enough force to disperse the photons and I crumpled to the ground again and my consciousness was stolen from me.

I had done my best... given it my all... and I still could not match her.

I felt a sense of disappointment well in my soul.

I had made a promise... 

And I had failed to keep that promise.

I could still sense them. The Dark Falz. They were all there... even Persona. They had been beaten, but they had not been destroyed. I sensed them in that place, the place where I could speak with them. A place inside of me that allowed my soul to speak to theirs. 


	8. The Wake of Failed Success

Yet, as I stood there, I did not see them... and the voice I heard belonged to Persona.

“They are photoners. The cornerstone of ARKS. They are the original Profound Darkness. The source of the Dark Falz’s power.” I listened to what she had to say.

“All efforts are wasted, scattered to nothingness. Therefore, a power that was not born of them is required to defeat them. Remember what was said.” I nodded a little, but did not turn to face them, I closed my eyes as they continued.

“That is why you and I exist. The final hope left by Xion.” _Xion.... the one whose kindness began all of this... whose curiosity led to everything that exists now as a threat. Yet she was not meaning to cause such chaos. I remember... she searched through countless timelines to try and find me... to find the one who could breach beyond the darkness’ hold and save Matoi... no, not just that. Save the universe._

I opened my eyes again, my conscious merging to the waking world. Where was I? I glanced around and saw the others were out, I recognized the red carpet and the golden statues around me. We were in the Nightfall Providence.

“You took quite the trouncing.” I looked over at the familiar voice.

“Phaleg?” How could I not recognize the blonde woman in a black Victorian style dress? She always had her hair in a single braid and was always looking for a good fight. She didn't use photons, mere brute strength. Apparently she had been the one who had saved us... she wasn't a friend or foe, per say. Just an immortal... supposedly, from Earth.

“I had some errands to take care of, but first, you should tend to the others.” I nod and got to my feet and went over to Matoi, she was the closest. I knelt next to her as she began to come around as well. She looked up at me.

“Ugh... Kaori? ... What happened?” She sat up.

“You shouldn’t move.” 

“.. I see.” She nodded, as if that told her everything she needed to know. Likely she remembered the fight as much as I did.

“I’m alright... but if we don’t treat Sukunahime and Kotoshiro...” She got to her feet and slowly made her way over to them, I understood her feelings and did not stop her. She fell to one knee before them, wavering a little but still she steadied herself and began to heal them both. I heard the comms go off.

“Kaori. Great, you’re okay.” It was Xiao. I nodded.

“Sorry for not keeping in touch. We’ve got a little... no, we’ve got a huge problem.” I was not surprised to hear it.

“The photoners are on the move. It’s on an overwhelming level compared to what we’ve seen up until now... they plan to wipe us out completely.” Again, not surprising. I felt a tug at my soul as the call ended and I closed my eyes. I knew this sensation... I knew the feeling. I was drawn back to that place and there were the other Dark Falz. They did not seem pleased.

“It’s not fair! She cheated!” Flo grumbled.

“She’s not allowed to be that strong!” Fleur echoed.

“Not at all, this was the expected result. You could say this was a great success.” Luther cut into their grumbling. I wasn’t sure I agreed.

“Hold it you sore loser, why do you seem so happy about all of this?” Margareta asked, voicing the question that had come to my mind as well.

“She is the ultimate vessel that I created. This is proof of her outstanding quality.” I wanted to face palm.

“We Dark Falz were nothing to her, and even Kaori was no match... I’m frightened by the extent of my own genius.” 

“Cut the carefree crap already. Aren’t you tired of losing constantly? Figure out a way to beat that asshole!” Gettemhult cut in.

“Haha, impossible. No matter how violently we struggle, the outcome remains fixed. She herself stated as much. She is The Profound Darkness. The origin of our powers, so to speak.” _But not the origin of mine. Not the origin of Persona._

“No creature will die to its own poison. It is that simple.” 

“Then what are we? Are we useless?” Flo asked.

“Then what, what? Are we done being useful?” Fleur replied.

“Not exactly. Our connection to Kaori does, in fact, serve a purpose.” I stayed quiet, where was he going with this?

“Were our powers hers, the world would already have met its demise.” _So, I have made things a challenge for Shiva by absorbing the Dark Falz myself before she could..._

“In other words, we are fulfilling a role simply by being here. That is all.” I agreed with him. I could not have stood a chance if Shiva had their power... but as fate would have it, I had acquired them instead... no, Kaori had. I just helped it along behind the computer screen. I shook away those thoughts though. It didn’t matter who had. They were here with me now and because of it things were as they were and not what they could have been.

“Isn’t this all your fault for making that monster in the first place?” Margareta cut in.

“I won’t deny my involvement in this predicament, but how far back does the true cause lie?” _Quite a ways..._ I thought, but didn’t interrupt.

“If you could do everything over, should we never have met Xion? If that is what you desire, then do so. Create a history where the photoners, and of course the ARKS, never came to exist.” He knew I could not do that. Too many lives would be destroyed if I went back far enough to change history like that and I knew Xion had known this as well and that was why I had never been sent that far back. I was meant to ratify a mistake... not undo everything. 

“That should be fine. Because I was born before anyone met Xion.” Flo said and I had to shake my head.

“That should be fine. As long as Flo exists, then I’ll be born.” Fleur agreed.

“You kids sure are carefree.” Margareta put in and I knew where she was coming from.

“You’re thinking too much, lady. We can’t do anything.” Flo replied.

“We can’t do anything even if we think about it.” Fleur agreed. Of course, because I was the only one with the ability to step through time now. None of them could do it, they could assist me, step out to help as they did against Shiva... but they were reliant upon me. They could not overtake me.

“Photons exist alongside the Akashic Record.” Luther spoke up again.

“As long as photons exist, so too does The Profound Darkness. If you truly wished to eradicate it... Your only choice would be to send The Profound Darkness to a world devoid of photons.”

“Easier said than done.” I muttered.

“A world without the Akashic Record... Does a place like that even exist?” Margareta asked. I wondered that myself, but I had a feeling it did, the thing was... where? How could one even hope to find a place and open up a gateway to it? Even gateways relied on photons to function so... would it even be possible to open the way to begin with? As I thought about it, it occurred to me I KNEW a place. Of course! I had come from such a place after all. Where photons did not exist as they did here. Sure they existed, but not like that... they were something different. In fact, it didn’t exist at all as a source of energy. In my world, a photon was merely what we called a particle that measured light and sound waves. It would be utterly useless to Shiva! If we could just send her there somehow... but then, I wasn’t certain how to open the way there. I had come to this world through a pathway that was one way as far as I knew... a person did not return from death - if indeed that was how I got here. Taking that into account, I realized that there was no likely way to bring back Kaori either... I had taken her place, after perishing in my home... because she, herself, had perished. Her will to fight, however, and to help others, had been so strong that she had somehow managed to reach out and find my soul upon the moment of death and bring me into her world... to continue the fight and give ARKS and those she had known the hope they desperately needed.

“How would I know? Even as a former photoner, I could not find such a place.” Luther replied and I nearly laughed. Of course he couldn’t find such a place. A place that had no photons was like ultraviolet light to humans. It was beyond visible sight without help, but still existed nonetheless. Just because one could not see something did not mean it did not exist after all. After that the group departed and I was left alone with my thoughts.

When Matoi and I had recovered back on the Thorn with our friends, we went to the bridge to make our report to Xiao. Waiting for us there was the small doll, it wasn’t until Matoi spoke that I remembered its name.

“Tamahime, is it safe for you to be here?” 

“Hm? What do you mean?” 

“With Harukotan in the state that it’s in, won’t it be tough for Kotoshiro if you’re not around?” 

“You forget, Matoi. Tamahime is my double. My body is still on Harukotan.”

“Ah, that’s right. Are you feeling well? And what about Kotoshiro?” 

“Don’t worry, injured we may be, but Kotoshiro and I are well.” That was good news.

“Is Kakuriyo safe?” I ventured to ask.

“Those who remain there are safe for the present. It’s only a matter of time before Shiva finds a way in. However, the weapons rampaging about are mere underlings. Concern is unnecessary.” For now at least. I felt somewhat relieved, knowing that the main target was not them. As long as I was around, Shiva would not have a reason to personally visit them and wipe them out... no, she was gunning for me. Tamahime said as much too.

“Shiva’s focus is aimed at you. Should her gaze turn back to Harukotan, we shall be extinguished.” This I knew.

“Therefore, it is only logical that we would support you. Don’t worry for Harukotan, focus solely on what you must do.”

“Yeah, we will.” Matoi agreed, as did I. It was only logical, after all, that Shiva wished to take down the biggest threat first so that the rest would come easy... as long as I was around, my friends and allies would be safe from being targeted. I thought about Wil at that moment. Yes, as long as I was the bigger threat, those like him would be safe. It was a comfort, on one hand, and really frightening on the other. There was nothing that wasn’t scary about being turned into prey for something that could so easily wipe me out. She very nearly had on Harukotan when things had gone wrong with our plan. I didn’t want to think too hard on that. I knew if I did I would just end up falling back into the thoughts that had led me into the depressive state beforehand and then I’d be no use to anyone. I had to keep hold of what Wil had told me. Of the blind faith he had in my strength. I could not simply forget the piercing blue eyes... it was like an old friend. Remembering my brief time with him made me smile a little as I left the bridge, Matoi stayed behind as Xiao hadn't been there. I was going to go relax some and finish recovering properly. Individuals like Will were why I was willing to fight. I had always been a pacifist in my life, never lifting a hand in violence even though I had done some martial arts in my youth. I reflected on my life, as it had been and as it was now; I wasn't perfect but I had met a handful of those who were perfect enough for me that I cared and loved them, whether we were family or not. I wasn't the best of people all the time but I had always been there when it mattered and that was the legacy I wished to leave here, the same I had left in the world I had been taken from. Now though I wondered why Will was here. Why did someone so great as he have to lose it all like that? Did he die too? I felt sorry for him even at the same time that I was dedicated to fighting so he could live. Even if it meant I would embrace death a second time.

People like him... souls like him, were worth dying for, at least to me.


	9. No One Important

While walking through the lobby, just sort of taking things in around me, I bumped into Pati and Tia. As usual the two were not in complete agreement, Pati always had way too much enthusiastic energy... to the point she often came off as younger than she was. Tia acted older, despite that of the two, Pati was the older one. Pati didn’t have much to say other than complain about Shiva and being exhausted; I hadn’t honestly noticed but now that she’d pointed it out I realized it was true. Operatives around us who had been rushing from one mission with the photoners to the next looked worn out. There were so many such emergencies daily now that it was wearing everyone thin. I wondered if this was the enemy’s goal or simply a coincidence. I felt bad for them. I really did. Though the idea Pati came up with to defeat Shiva was unexpected... and definitely ridiculous enough to fit her. After the two ran off, I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“Oh, Kaori. Are you feeling well?” I turned to see it was Phaleg. I nodded.

“I sensed a strong presence, so I traveled here... That... Shiva, was it?” I nodded again.

“She was stronger than I imagined.” That was surprising, coming from her.

“It was in her eyes when she blocked my surprise attack. She did not possess any of the drive that humans do... Nor could I sense any will to fight.” So, Shiva didn’t want to fight? And yet... well that didn’t seem to make much sense.

“To her, us ‘humans’ are trifling existences, not even worthy of her sentiments.” I nodded a little, okay, that  _ did _ make sense. Even with Mitra playing her part as Shiva on Harukotan, I got that message that she did not see any life as worthy except that of her companions... the only other photoners who were alive, so to speak. I am not sure if Aurora counted as alive really seeing as she was a weapon and the same could be said for Harriette, who wasn’t exactly even a photoner.

“Furthermore... Despite her lack of fighting spirit, she showed overwhelming strength. Just how strong would she be, if she were ever to display the desire to do battle... Just once... I would like to try fighting with her in that state.” She smiled, I really found the desire to do that pointless and honestly a little odd, but this was Phaleg. She lived to fight against the strong just to fight them. Reminded me of an anime I used to watch in my youth where a character who was constantly getting stronger wanted nothing much more in life than to fight the strongest foes he could find... and he wasn’t much on brains either. 

“Good luck with that.” I said and she chuckled and walked off. I had always found her to be a rather interesting and unusual individual. Well, as the saying goes, different makes the world go round. With no one else I knew in sight, I decided that I wanted to relax and the best way to do that would be to hide in my quarters for a little while. I grimaced when I got there and realized it was still not built for comfort... that’s when I remembered what Wil had said. I wondered if the invitation still stood... and even if it did... how would I get there? Not like I knew the coordinates needed to just show up. I sighed inwardly, things were never that simple were they? So I picked my tablet out of the hidden pocket on the dress I wore and began to type out a simple message; the great thing about understanding how the terminals worked here was being able to search up how to contact others more easily than the actual game made it be. The message was nothing flashy really:

I hope this isn’t a bad time, but you mentioned you knew of a place to relax. I’d like to take you up on that offer. 

I then hit send and had nothing to do but wait for a reply. I wasn't sure how long it would take for a reply or if he would even answer as it was possible he wasn't even able to, like being in the middle of a mission or something. He likely had things to keep him busy as I did. I almost regretted even sending it but I couldn't take it back now either. Why had I even sent it? That was silly, I knew why. I wanted some place to relax and possibly share company with someone who knew the real me. ... Was I getting attached? This was ridiculous. We were both married, I shouldn't be considering attachment beyond friendship and we were strangers. That sort of thing only happened in stories. So after a stern self talking to myself about ridiculous girlish notions, that I was a full grown adult and not some doe-eyed teenager, I checked my tablet again for a response. 

Wil looked at his visiphone and saw he had a message from... the Guardian. Why would she be messaging him? He read the message and then sent a reply:

Alright, I actually bought a castle in a secluded location on Earth, away from everyone and everything. It is way off the beaten path, away from all major cities that could potentially be targets. You will have free rein of the entire place while you are here, and my auxiliaries will provide security for you. Just come whenever you are ready, it is my home after all, and it is as much yours while you are here.

A response came back almost immediately:

I appreciate the hospitality, you truly are a very kind soul.

After I had sent the message back, I found the coordinates where the message was sent from so that I could visit the place. He had said it was a castle, but I wasn’t really prepared for what I would find when I actually visited there. He had mentioned he had more than one auxiliary, I wondered about that but shrugged it off. It wasn’t really my business why he did or the how. I didn’t see anyone when I appeared in the room. It was very reminiscent of an old castle from the set up. Dark wood sofas with red cushions and red carpeting next to dark wooden tables gave it the feel of a time gone by. It was lovely to behold. I could see why he had chosen such a place to live. It was a sanctuary, in a manner of speaking, I - a former writer and author - found myself at a loss for words when I saw it. I was never a very successful author as few to none ever bought my works but I had many followers of my digital works that were free so there were those out there who liked my work, but it had never panned out into a steady paycheck. Not used to being recognized everywhere I went... there were ups and downs to this sort of fame. Strangers knew who I was and looked up to me, which was nice... to a point. 

It was a lot of pressure. More than I was used to and so this was a haven. I felt I could relax here, even if I didn’t see its owner or anyone else currently. I had seen the last message and wondered where he had gotten to, but didn’t want to interrupt. It had read:

Wish I could do more. If you need anything while you’re here, don’t hesitate to let me know.

It wasn’t long before she was greeted by Wil’s main auxiliary, Phineas. He was about the size Siyo was and had blonde hair and blue eyes. 

“You must be the Guardian. When my master said we were expecting company, I did not expect it to be you. Welcome, please enjoy your stay here. If you’re wondering where Wilhelm is, he is out taking care of something important to him. Between you and me I believe he is proposing to his girlfriend, I don’t know for sure. Anyhow, my name is Phineas. If you need anything, do not hesitate to ask.” 

“I see. Girlfriend huh? Ah well, she is lucky then.”  _ A shame... I suppose it only makes sense I never had a chance... ugh, I’m an idiot. Of course he’d be taken. _ She shook away the thoughts before they could affect her to listen to the smaller being.

“In fact, her features are exactly like yours. It’s like she is a mirror image of you.” 

“That’s oddly coincidental.” He shrugged.

“I just tend to the castle.” He chuckled and then showed her around. She followed him.  _ Almost spooky honestly... didn’t think anyone copied the appearance I use...  _ It wasn’t that far fetched, but at the same time she hoped that, for his sake... this girl really was real. He was a kind enough soul to a stranger that he deserved to be happy.  _ I suppose it was inevitable.  _ She thought about the message she had sent Ninavask that morning... but there had been no reply.  _ Perhaps I am just an old fool who misses what was taken from me. I don’t think I have much left in me and maybe it’s for the best. I was here to win a war... nothing more.  _ She tucked away such thoughts before they could do more than exist. She knew what would happen if she entertained such thoughts for too long. It was a weakness she could no longer afford. While she was a little uncomfortable with the whole ‘twin’ thing she decided to spend some time on the balcony, listening to the water fountains and taking in the scenery before her.

Things had gone exactly as planned. During an alliance gathering Wilhelm had taken his girlfriend to the side where they could be alone and proposed to her. The answer was yes, but for some reason any time he was near her he would forget the Guardian’s name, and when he was near the Guardian he would forget his girlfriend’s name. Was it a circumstantial amnesia? A coincidence? The only other explanation was that his girlfriend was a doppelganger of the Guardian. That could explain the familiarity. When he was near the Guardian, it was as though she could not go anywhere near, which he thought was odd. He returned to the castle and, as he thought, with the Guardian being there, his now fiancée could not go with him. He walked out to the balcony, taking a breath of fresh air that was in the area.

“You seem happy, did everything go to plan?” She asked when she saw him. She had a feeling it did, she could be happy for him.  _ I should be. He was here before me and found a way to be happy. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m just not sure I can do the same. I don’t have the strength he seems to have. _ She didn’t let her thoughts show though, refusing to let them pass as anything more than fleeting notions, though the thoughts did hurt, she withdrew from her own thoughts on the matter. It didn’t matter. She knew why she was here, what her purpose was; she had a promise to keep. The saying went that one was their own worst enemy and that the deepest of wounds were those that were caused by one’s own thoughts and feelings. She believed this to be true and so she banished her own thoughts deep into her mind and away from where they could hurt. She would find the strength to do this... somehow, because there were souls like him who depended upon it... whose lives depended on it. She focused only on the moment, refusing to let her own thoughts betray her or cut deep enough to make her vulnerable in that moment. 

She distanced herself from it, to keep the thoughts at bay, something she had perfected in her youth. A defense mechanism that she was able to trigger whenever she needed to hide from the world or even from herself. She focused on the moment as he spoke.

“Yes it did, thank you for asking.” He said with a smile.

“Congratulations. I’m glad things went well.” She returned the smile, even if it wasn’t as genuine as it should be, it was still there and she was trying to be genuine. She knew if she thought about something enough it would be real... or at least real enough.

“Me too. I was afraid she would say no to be honest.”

“Oh? Well I didn’t take the person you chose to be with to be an idiot.”

“You flatter me.” He chuckled.

“I’m no one special, I’m just me.” 

“Says the one who wouldn’t take something like from me.” She replied back a little cheekily.

“Well...” He didn’t have anything to say.

“You two act very much alike.”

“I heard we look alike, what’s her name?” Her name... oh no.

“It’s... Kaori? That’s odd I’ve never hesitated with her name before. It’s like I was reluctant to tell you.” 

“ ... Hmm. That’s quite the coincidence.” She shrugged it off though.

“In any case, I hope things go well for the two of you. You have a lovely home by the way.” She thought for a moment before commenting.

“If it helps with confusion, you can just call me Kay. I don’t mind. It’s close enough.” 

“That would probably be for the best. Wouldn’t want to accidentally run up and kiss you if I saw you. That would make for an awkward situation, and probably me picking myself up off the floor.” He laughed. I chuckled a little at the imagery.

“Ah, I wouldn’t worry about that. I might have a record against falspawn, but I’m not in the habit of decking my fellow operatives.” He nodded.

“Good information to know, but regardless now calling you Kay will eliminate that possibility.” I nodded.

“I hope you find accommodations here to your liking.”

“I’m sure I will. I don’t know what I was thinking when I designed my quarters on the ship to be honest. Perhaps something of a pipe dream and far too small for true relaxation.”

“Sometimes just a place to lie down is adequate for people. Other times not so much. Nothing compares to the real scenery, like what we are seeing here.”

“I have to agree.” He closed his eyes.

“Take however long you need to rest and relax.”

“Thank you.” I was certain I would not be there long, just long enough to relax some... a few hours at most likely. I didn’t disturb his relaxation further and simply lapsed into silence, soaking in the view and trying not to lament a missed opportunity. Eventually, when the thoughts would not leave and I was certain I was as relaxed as I could be, I left Wilhelm on the balcony to enjoy his own happiness, leaving a small note of thanks on one of the coffee tables. Was it strange that such a place drew me? I shook off a sense of regret and jealousy as I headed into the teleporter. I returned to the place that was my cramped quarters and promptly ordered the smallest bed I could find and had it delivered. I then stuck it in a corner... it was a bunk bed, strangely enough, but whatever. I settled on the bottom bed to close my eyes, and pretend for... just a little while, that things weren’t what they were.

In dreams I was free. Free to seek out the happiness that eluded me here, in the place I had been dropped without warning. My mind ventured back to the days of the life I had left behind. Days that weren’t always nice but at the end of them I’d had my husband and my family to cheer me up and cheer me on. To celebrate the good days and comfort me in the bad. To support me and stand by her side. In my dreams I had love and happiness... 

The sound of a loud PA announcement tore me from my slumber and the happiness vanished into the darkness as I rubbed at her eyes as the PA droned on.

“... an operation to eradicate The Profound Darkness. All ARKS ops, report to Quest Counter ASAP to join the mission.” A groan left me. Why was that so loud? I rolled out of the bed and went in search of the speaker in the room. When I found it I changed the volume to be almost non-existent and then went back to the bed with a grumble. I slipped back into the bed to return my dreams... but the dreams did not return as much as I wished and I found strangely my thoughts were haunted by a pair of piercing blue eyes that seemed to see the real me behind the charade. I wondered just how foolish I was. Had I lost myself behind the charades I have been forced to play for the good of others? Was I truly lost? I found I did not truly know the answer to this, I remembered a song from my youth that talked about such a thing... about a young man who loved a young woman and nearly lost who he was to a part he had to play in order to even win her affection. It was silly that she would think about this sort of thing though as she was not in love and certainly was not even trying for a relationship, but the one thing they did share in common was the whole charades thing. I had to be someone I wasn’t... I didn’t really have a choice, unlike the fictional guy I was thinking of. I tried not to think too much on it because I was pretty sure that if I did then I’d just slip back down the path I’d been woken from. Why was it that I couldn’t get those eyes out of my head though? It was ridiculous. Eventually I fell asleep again, thinking about the friend I had made. 

Dreams could be strange things, I’m aware of this more than most, but what is perhaps the most strange is that I can’t recall having any at all since I had come to this place. I was not sure if that was due to the stress of things, to having too much on mind, to having several souls inside of me or what the deal was. It was just some oddity I had noticed upon waking as having a creative mind surely I should have remembered having dreams of some sort, or at least the impressions of them. I knew that rem sleep was essential to health, but dreams themselves were not entirely essential. The study of dreams and sleep was one of the few things that had fascinated me when I was younger, especially since I had figured out how to trigger lucid dreaming when I was younger at a whim and had learned about the special meanings that dreams could have to a dreamer and what it could mean in terms of for quality of life as well as the various aspects of life. Dreams could reveal one’s inner most thoughts, feelings, fears and so on. So then, what did it mean that I didn’t have any at all while I slept? It wasn’t a lack of ambition or aspiration, that much I knew, because I’d never had much of either of those to begin with in my life and it had never affected my dreams before. Rather, as a writer I often had bizarre or random dreams, when I wasn’t controlling them, due to my vivid imagination that would play out before me. Sometimes this also meant I’d have nightmares, but that wasn’t so unusual and that normally happened when I was stressed over something. Usually when I was stressed over something or anxious I had a very specific dream, one about school; like not being on time or going to the wrong place... that sort of thing.

Being that I was literally in a place where science fiction met fantasy, one would think that a creative mind like I had would be ripe with all sorts of stories when I wasn’t living it. Occasionally I thought of some things, yes, but I didn’t really have the time to entertain such thoughts anymore with so much on the line. The threat of Shiva and the photoners was my concern now. I had to find some way to stop them. I couldn’t just dismiss them as a story as I had when I was on the other side and time was not necessarily on my side either. Every day that went by, more and more lives were sacrificed to win this war. So I decided to concentrate all my energy into finding a solution. I secluded myself into my quarters, not really coming out except to reassure Matoi that I was fine and that I was trying to come up with some sort of solution for this war. Time seemed to slow to a crawl for me as one day was the same as the next. I spent all of my time thinking and talking with Luther and the others. I went over all the information that we knew time and time again. Occasionally I would try to seek out Persona for information as well, but it seemed that Persona was content to say nothing more and did not heed my calls. I knew there had to be some solution out there... I contacted Pati and Tia via tablet at least once a week, seeing if they had any new information. Nothing. Every day that slipped by I began to wonder more and more if my original thoughts weren’t right. That this really was a war I simply could not win.

No matter what we tried, it seemed the enemy was always one step ahead of us. There wasn’t likely any way we could spring the seal trap again. Especially not now that the enemy was aware of it. I knew I was starting to grate on the nerves of the collective after a while.

"Do we have to do this every day? We want to play." Flo whined.

"Yes, we are tired of this. We want to play." I sighed.

"So go play for a while but not all day. This is important." I replied after a moment and the two looked at me.

"Come play with us!"

"Yes, come play!" Fleur agreed.

"I am sorry but I don't have time. Not until this war ends."

"You're no fun." Flo grumbled.

"No fun at all." Fleur agreed and the two skipped off.

"I hate to say it but the brat has a point. We have been at this for days now." Margareta commented.

"Look, I am not going to hold you here against your will but regardless I have to figure out something."

"You're going to run yourself ragged like this you know." Luther commented.

"I know, but with lives on the line... ones I am responsible for I can't afford to rest until this is over. Surely you of all those here understand this even if you never cared." Luther shook his head and gave a helpless shrug.

"I admit you have me there."

"Well we're no closer to taking her down." Gettemhult grumped. I sighed and rubbed my temples.

"I know. I know. I have been trying to figure this out. They have AIS disruptors so that is out of the question for the moment though I already suggested to Ludmila that changing the frequency that they operate on might change that unless they are just using a giant magnet in which case she needs to figure out how to counteract that..." I shook my head.

"As far as I know we can't use photons or aether against her. She uses photons to block physical attacks covering that weakness. Making just trying to overpower her impossible as her photons is literally everyone in ARKS combined.... She's also literally The Profound Darkness so falspawn and phantoms are just as ineffective, escaping falspawn would fare no better." I said, ticking off everything we knew so far... or that I did.

"We also know the photoners sealed her away so it's likely they couldn't overpower her at the time either, but also knew she was a threat that they couldn't handle any other way. That trick isn't likely to work, she will likely be expecting something like it again. Especially after the seal mission." I fell silent after a moment.

"Then what do you suggest?"

"I have a solution, but it's not one anyone is going to like. Not any of you, not Matoi, Xiera or anyone else."

"I see." Luther said.

"You're planning to be the bait to draw her into a different dimension aren't you?"

"What?! I do not agree with this!" Margareta objected.

"She did say we would not like it did she not?" Margareta huffed. Gettemhult chuckled, surprising Margareta.

"Just what's funny about this?" She demanded.

"You got guts after all kid. You really are just like her. I'm in."

"Wait, what?! Are you nuts?!" Margareta demanded.

"And what other option do you have? We're all in this together and if this is the only way to protect what Sena values so much, who am I to deny it? What are you scared of? We have already faced death before, this won't be any different."

"I don't but this can't be the only way! What about you Luther? Surely you don't agree."

"Hmm, I might not be in any hurry to hasten my final demise, but it is logically sound, given what we know of the enemy thus far."

"You must be joking! Am I the only sane one here?"

"Sane, insane, what does it matter? We are already dead to the universe." Flo said, spooking Margareta slightly with his and Fleur's sudden reappearance.

"Yes, we have lived and we have died. It matters not what happens to us." I looked over at Margareta.

"The only other voice who isn't here is Persona and I already know what they will say." I replied. Margareta put her hands on her hips.

"Fine, but I will kick your ass if this is all for nothing, understand?" I gave her a small smile and nodded. The group departed then from me. It seemed that this was the only plan I could muster after months of planning. No one in ARKS was going to agree to this. Meaning I had to pull it off somehow without telling anyone else what my true motive was. That was going to be a tough task indeed. No one I knew was going to agree to this. I woke to a message on my tablet:

I have no recollection of that day, sorry. Who is this again?

I sent back a short reply: 

It's fine, I am no one important.


	10. Spanning the Universe

With my goal in mind, I soon found myself on the bridge... well, sooner than I had originally thought anyway. Xiao and Tamahime where there and it was mostly just an overview of what we were facing, so nothing new really. Xiao was positive as always, talking about how we proved that they could be taken down. Xiera was as realistic as always of course. It wouldn’t be much of a meeting without Matoi there either. For some reason Phaleg decided to tag along, but I can only guess why that might be. She only reaffirmed what we already knew, that we could not simply deal with Shiva through normal means. I expected it would be just a routine meeting, but we were interrupted by a call from Earth, more specifically from Enga. Xiera patched him in.

“Kaori, Xiera! Sorry we only get to talk like this! I know you guys have your hands full, but we’ve got big trouble too! Monsters have appeared - and they aren’t phantoms!” Monsters? On Earth? The screen he used changed and I felt my heart sink a little as Xiera confirmed what I saw myself.

“Those are photoner forces! Why are they on Earth?” I wondered that myself then realized that our two worlds were connected and perhaps Shiva had already considered that we might try and utilize resources there to be able to fight against her... or something like that. I didn’t think that would work, but that didn’t really matter did it? 

“They were sent by Shiva. Or rather, Shiva has finally revealed them. She wishes to crush all worlds at once.” Phaleg commented. That seemed plausible to me.

“I should leave. They alone will not be enough... Ophiel.” Right... Mother Corps worked with Earth Guide now, I shook away the thoughts on that. Phaleg was right, the forces on Earth wouldn’t be able to handle the photoner fleet on their own if Shiva was there. Phaleg left us, no surprise there.

“I know things aren’t good, but we can’t just ignore them.” I nodded. My Earth friends were in trouble, I wasn’t going to leave them in a lurch like this.

“Kaori. You’re the most familiar with Earth. See if you can find out what’s going on.” I departed for Earth right away. I didn’t hesitate to jump into the telepool to transport onto the surface and straight into the fight, cutting down several of the enemy with my dual blades.

“Kaori! Thanks for the assistance.” I didn’t have time to respond to Aika before more showed up and we set to work. I cut through several enemies in my path, blades whirling; it was just another day for me, but I doubted that those of Earth saw it that way. Fighting side by side with those who lived there, it was different than simply fighting with other ARKS, but this didn’t hinder me. The plan I meant to set in motion would have to wait, for now, as I helped the Earthlings defend their home. 

“Such powerful foes, defeated in an instant... now we can push them back!” I couldn’t remember her name, it didn’t matter much, she had been a side character anyway who had only appeared one other time. Her and Aika ran forward into battle with a new wave. The other was right, the machines the photoners sent at us were powerful but they could be easily overtaken. She was surprised by a foe, however and was saved when a new face showed up. She seemed to know him.

“You can’t be so reckless out here. Didn’t somebody once tell me selfish actions get you kicked out of ARKS?” Who was this guy? Eh, it didn’t too much matter, he was as skilled with his blade as I was with mine. 

“I-I know that. Thank you too, Kaori.” She said after standing up, I wished I wasn’t so bad at remembering names, but whatever. We turned to see more foes.

“Itsuki, did you finish the evacuation?” So that was this guy’s name huh? I wondered if I’d remember later, not that it would matter.

“Of course I did. That’s why I came here to help.” We got communications from Enga a few seconds later.

“Kaori, can you hear me? Sorry you had to come all the way out here? I’ve got another favor to ask!” I nodded even as he went on.

“Me and the math genius have got the city covered, but they’re swarming the school too! Kaori... I’m leaving it to you!” Of course. I nodded and looked at the others, it was Itsuki who spoke.

“Don’t worry. We’ll handle this area.” 

“Itsuki’s right. You’ve shown us how to eliminate them.” Aika spoke up, as if to an unvoiced concern. I nodded in response and rushed off to the school. I arrived at the school to find the both Khori and Hitsugi were facing down several of the luminmechs, I cut down several of them all at once with a powerful blow before landing in front of the pair.

“It’s you!” 

“Kaori! You made it!” Khori said when I turned to them both.

“Looks like I got here in time. Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Thanks Kaori.” Hitsugi said with a nod. It was then that we heard from Xiera.

“Hitsugi, Khori. I know it’s been a while, but we’ll have to catch up some other time! I’m reading enemies right above you! There’s a lot of them!” I glanced up, hardly surprised. I gripped my blades tighter as a swarm appeared before us.

“Hitsugi!” Khori said, turning to her red haired friend. Hitsugi nodded.

“Yeah... lend us a hand, Kaori.” I nodded. The three of us then charged against the enemy. I cut down the first with a series of slashes. It wasn’t a particularly hard fight as we slashed our way through their forces almost like we were dealing with sliced bread. Even when a rather large luminmech appeared we easily cut it down to size. While we did that, it seemed that even Hagito got in on the act of going against the photoners with his own, unique power which could be seen in the sky cutting through the foe just as easily as we had. It was like watching some sort of light show from where we were.

“It’s... a little extreme, but this should even the playing field a bit!” Xiera said as we watched the devastation happening far off in the city.

“Exactly. Quantity is key here. Their motive is unimportant. Any useful piece should be used.” What was Phaleg doing on our comms again? Oh well, that didn’t much matter so much as winning this. The three of us scanned for more enemies as she spoke, but it seemed we’d gotten them all.

“Leave this place to us, Kaori. You may return to your own mission. I surmise that it is one that does not require you to be here.” She wasn’t wrong there. 

“Phaleg is right. We’ll handle things here somehow.” It was Och on the comms next. I vaguely remembered her.

“The enemies have to be coming from somewhere don’t they? Taking their source out is your job.” Enga said and I had to admit that I knew he was right. My real target was Shiva.

“It might not mean much, since you’ve already had to save us once... but leave this to us.” Right... the whole Mother/Adam incident... well, they should be able to stand on their own feet for a little while.

“Besides, we’ve got people here who once took down a god.” Yeah, that was true. He, Khori and Hitsugi were there for that fight.

“Be pretty embarrassing if they couldn’t even beat riff raff like this.” As he spoke, more enemies had appeared at the school and I had been helping Khori and Hitsugi fight them off.

“My brother is right, Kaori. We’ll protect the Earth. We may not be as strong as you, but everyone is working together... So you do your best too!” _Maybe not, but some day you could be the one to take the place I will leave. Who is to say?_ I tapped my comm piece and was teleported back to the dropship that then returned me back to the Thorn. I sighed inwardly. Just one more reason that I needed to succeed. That I could not make any mistakes. I would find the perfect time and place to draw out Shiva and then, with the right calculations that Luther had been doing for me, I would draw the both of us back to the world that I had come from. That was the plan. Doing so, of course, would mean the death of me likely; and I’d be a fool to not be sacred. Truth was, I was scared. Of it all, but I was more scared of not being able to protect them. To not be able to keep the promise that I had made. That, for me, was worse than death and I knew I could face death with a clear conscience. I would ensure that those I had promised to protect would have a future... 

When I returned to the Thorn I headed back to the bridge where I found Xiao, Matoi and Xiera still waiting for me.

“Thanks Kaori. I understand the situation now. We can’t afford to just sit back.” Xiao said and I nodded.

“I agree.” 

“Everyone on Earth is doing their best, but Shiva will just keep on destroying until we do something about her.” Xiera pointed out and I knew she wasn’t wrong. 

“We have to seal her powers somehow and defeat her. That is our sole objective.” He agreed. It was my sole objective. I only nodded.

“But it’s not as easy as it sounds.” Xiera put in, no, of course it wouldn’t be. Anything worth doing was never easy. 

“They’re reading our movements, so we won’t be able to lay any sort of trap...” Matoi said thoughtfully.

“Our calculation capabilities are roughly equal. We can predict when they’ll move, but the opposite holds true too.” I considered his words, that was why my plan was so risky. In being able to track my movements, it would not be easy to lure Shiva to me as a trap. Especially since we had already tried that before and it had failed.

“Is there even any kind of plan we can come with if they know our every move?” Xiera asked. 

“They don’t know our every move, Xiera, just can predict most... hmm. What if we increased the scope of the trap? Surround her somehow.” 

“If we could cover the whole universe, it might be possible...” Matoi replied thoughtfully.

“The barrier we used to return Matoi to normal was limited to a single planet, and even that took a while to prepare.” Xiera said.

“No doubt this will be an extensive operation then.”

“Yeah, something that covered the entire universe would take... who knows how long.” She put her hand to her head, considering it.

“A trap that spans the universe. Or maybe, we could turn the universe itself into a trap? If we did this and that... it could work.” I turned to see the one whom I had not yet met since becoming trapped in this world... Alma. She was as tall as Matoi was, boy I really felt short here... She was as I remembered her in game, but her flowing blonde hair with “cat ears” of hair was a lot softer looking and more bright blonde than I recalled. Her eyes were a soft gold, she wore the same white jacket that showed a bit of cleavage that I recall and the four pointed star around her neck was almost as big as my hand, it was a dull golden color, the headpiece on her “cat ears” was her communication device and was white in appearance, just like the rest of her clothes, the back of her hair, however, wasn’t blonde but shimmered with what looked like a swirling galaxy behind it. She wore a yellow belt with a pouch at her left hip and the jacket’s sleeves flared out a little at her lower arm and had patterns of gold that made it look pleated. It was hard to tell where her white pants ended and her shoes began, in the game, but in truth the hems of the pants were pleated like the jacket she wore and were the same white with a soft turquoise pattern coloring at the knees surrounded by golden lines. Her shoes were a steel grey with some light neon green patterns in them. This was the first Klariskrays, one of the original three heroes to seal Dark Falz Elder and a member of the Council of Six. As she was now, though, before me it was not her real body so I had no idea what she really looked like as Klariskrays was the name of the photons that had been within her, thinking on this reminded of Persona and the rest of the Dark Falz collective that now resided in me. Alma had lost her body due to experiments by Luther in an attempt to copy her ability to manipulate time; she had become one with the Akashic Records after her physical body died and thus persevered. Sadly, however, only those with a direct connection to Xion can see and speak with her... Meaning only myself and Kaori - of course - , Matoi, Xiera and Xiao can interact with her. At least as far we are aware. While others, like Risa, could sense her presence, they could not see or speak with her.

I almost laughed a little, reminded of the time that Alma had literally hid behind Kaori because Risa had been chasing her all over the ship but hadn’t been able to actually see her. In the end, Risa had just chalked it up to the presence she’d felt to being Kaori, but Alma had decided to not do random strolls willy nilly in the ship after that. I shook away the thoughts to focus on the here and now.

“Kaori, Xiera, think back. Something that could affect the entire universe all at once... Remember something like that?” She asked. Of course! Omega! 

“Huh? ... Oh!” Xiera came to the same conclusion I did.

“You mean Omega.” I said.

“Right. Your actions in Omega affected the Akashic Record.”

“And the changes in the Akashic Record spread throughout the universe... If we use Omega, we can erect a universe-wide barrier!” Xiao said in agreement. I wondered why I hadn’t considered this before.

“As powerful as Shiva is, she can’t run anymore if there’s nowhere left to run to.” I nodded. It was the perfect plan, but no doubt it would not be easy.

“Xiera, contact Risa immediately. If we’re going to Omega, Harriette’s cooperation will be vital.”

“Right away!” 

“We’ll begin calculating the feasibility, as well as every possible outcome... Alma, we’ll be counting on you.”

“Of course!” She replied, everyone seemed fired up now that we had a plan to finally stop Shiva once and for all. 

“Xiao, what about us?” Matoi asked.

“You two will... get yourselves a med check, first of all.” Matoi looked a little down, but I couldn’t help but chuckle. She worked as hard as I did on missions, so of course he’d say that. So of course the two of us ended up in the medbay.

“Ugh. What did we do to deserve this?” Matoi lamented.

“This isn’t some kind of punishment, Matoi! IT’s a perfectly normal procedure!” Filia did not seem pleased by this. I just shrugged.

“What I’m wondering is... how could you run all around like that with such extensive injuries!” I shook my head, wondering what Matoi was thinking, even if we could 

“I’m... I’m sorry.” Matoi said, we knew she didn’t mean any offense.

“You need to get some rest until your wounds heal, Matoi! Stay far away from conflicts of any kind!” She turned on me next.

“And you! What were you thinking, running off to Earth before the dust from the battle even settled?” I raised my hands up in surrender.

“Yes, yes, I know full well how urgent it was; but as your caretaker, I have every right to complain. Listen carefully, Guardians! If you get injured, you report to me right away! Do I make myself clear!?” She then turned and left.

“Well, well, WELL. Sounds like someone got quite the scolding!” I turned to see Risa, why was she here?

“Why not think of this as just taking a hard-earned rest, Matoi?” 

“Oh, Risa. I didn’t know you’d come back.”

“Lemme tell you, fighting on the frontlines when you’re outnumbered is so fun it just stings.” A moment after Hariette came forward.

“Risa came back from the battlefield at my request. I supposed I ought to be present if we’re getting Omega involved.”

“Oh, is that you, Harriette? After all this time, it still shocks me to hear you in there.” 

“You’ll just have to get used to it, Matoi.” 

“Indeed. I’m sure this would be easier to swallow if Risa spoke a bit less eccentrically, but here we are.” Risa didn’t like that.

“Well now, WELL now! How dare you! There’s nothing odd about how I speak. It’s perfectly normal... for me.” The two switched again.

“Ahem. There you have it.” Matoi chuckled a little.

“A-anyway, moving on. Can you head to the Bridge? If we’re headed for Omega, we need Alma’s help.” I nodded. So of course I headed back to the bridge.

“According to my calculations, deploying a barrier through Omega has a high probability of success.” This was good news to hear upon entering the bridge, of course it came from Xiao.

“So, will you do it?” Of course he was talking to me when he asked that.

“It goes without saying. Of course I will.” 

“As a former denizen. I’ll accompany you. Allow me to take the lead.” Hariette said. I nodded. Risa giggled.

“Look out, Omega, here I come at long last!” 

“Um.. that’s all well and good, Hariette, but can Risa even go?” That was a good question.

“Her bond with me will let her. As a divine being of Omega, I imagine I could simply go on my own, but...” Of course Risa interrupted.

“I’m really looking forward to seeing what kind of fight the baddies on Omega put up. I’m thrilled. Stoked. _Pumped_ , even.” That was a new one.

“... I cannot simply dismiss my host’s wishes. Very well-- she will serve as my guard.” Well, Hariette wasn’t wrong there I suppose.

“I certainly hope she won’t need to do any guarding.” My own thoughts echoed Xiera’s words.

“Oh, well, I guess I’ll go too...” Matoi piped up.

“Sorry, Second, you’ll be helping me send them over to Omega.” Alma said. I felt back for Matoi, I knew she wanted to go too... maybe there would be a way in the future. She seemed plenty disappointed.

“Under the circumstances, we can’t risk having both Guardians away at once.” Xiao reasoned and he was right there. Someone needed to be here to guard the fleet against the photoners and Shiva while I was away.

“Besides, I believe you were ordered to get some rest. I understand how you feel, but we need you to sit this one out.” I turned to her.

“Take care of things over here, okay?” I knew she would understand what I meant, that I was trusting her to take care of the fleet in my absence.

“Alright, I understand. Be careful over there.”

“Xiera, can you go to Omega as a guide?” I wasn’t surprised Xiao asked her to go again.

“Well... Things have been changing pretty rapidly over there, haven’t they? Will I even be able to play navigator for them?” 

“It’s alright. Omega remains largely the same as the world the Guardians knew.” Hariette reassured her.

“Since I am a being of Omega, my presence here in this world has synchronized the flow of time between the two.” Well that was a relief.

“In that case, my concern has more to do with the fact that you’re asking me to go back to a world with Maggie in charge.” I about laughed. Yes, Margareta was something else, but I did not hold it against her really.

“Oh, I’m quite sure Margareta has things well under control... most likely.” Yeah, she wasn’t the most ideal ruler, but she was still a ruler and it wasn’t like people didn’t listen to her. I just wondered what we would be facing. While preparations were being made, I ran into Ludmila who had some questions for me about Risa. That was different. She basically wanted me to ask Risa how she predicted the enemy’s movements faster than the radar systems could. I wasn’t sure if I could get a straight answer from her, but I was willing to try. Except that Risa came up while we were talking... so I didn’t need to ask myself. Talk about timing. Ludmila lost me in her techno ramblings after a while and Risa... well she was just herself. I also somehow managed to end up being the live audience of an interview from Pati and Tia with Lukot... how do I end up in these situations I’ll never fully understand. Hearing Tia speak about people having secrets made me a little on the nervous side, I had more than one I was keeping from them - not to mention all of ARKs as it were. Lucky for me though Pati began talking about one of Tia’s, at least making me relieved neither focused on me. Didn’t need that pressure... yikes.

I was strolling through the shopping plaza to pick up some supplies when I found myself called over by Lukot and Stratos... seems Lukot had made herself a callsign... “Pale Nimbus” I thought it was a good one for her. It was kinda interesting, watching the three together, even though Stratos didn’t seem to acknowledge that their friend “Kyokie” just showed up and then disappeared at random during their conversation of the whole callsign thing and the Phantom advocate gave Stratos the callsign “Sapphire Flash” which sounded awesome to me... but then Stratos got embarrassed about it. Ah well... 


	11. Travail

What we arrived to, in Omega, was a shocker. Photoner forces were fighting the soldiers of Cuento! I knew I had to help! Seems this wouldn’t be so easy as we had first thought... Hariette insisted we talk to Margareta first, of course she took us to the castle using her divine power; it’s kinda handy having a goddess on your side. Margareta told us how the forces had come from the lake around the black cocoon that Elmir had left behind and so of course after that we ended up telling her all about Shiva. After she began demanding answers, it was only right that we explain what we knew about this new threat to her and the kingdom she ruled over now.

“I see, I see. So in the Guardian’s world, a supreme evil being is doing bad stuff and everyone’s having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” Well, that was one way to put it.

“And now you’ve gone and dragged us into it! Well, hurry up and wipe the floor with that supreme evil lady!” 

“That’d be a great idea if it were anywhere close to being that easy.” Xiera said.

“I wish it was that simple.” I agreed.

“Anyway, I wasn’t expecting to see Photoner weapons all the way here in Omega.” 

“Nor was I.” I admitted.

“Oh, gosh, goodness, gracious! Isn’t it obvious? Omega’s basically a glimpse inside the Akashic Records.” I already knew that, but that didn’t explain the... oh, wait. Yes, it actually DID explain the reason the photoner forces were here... those soldiers... they must represent ARKS! Why didn’t I see it before?

“We shouldn’t be surprised to see it mimicking our own world! It’d be weirder if we  _ didn’t _ see that inside the memory of the universe!” She had a point there.

“So since the passage of time here is now anchored to time on the Oracle’s side, the effects are showing up in real time too?” Xiera asked.

“Does that mean that Omega’s basically replaying the history of what happens in Oracle’s universe?” I nodded, basically, yes.

“I’m glad you’re all enjoying this nonsense, but more to the point: we have to wallop YOUR supreme evil, or OUR collective goose will be cooked too, no?” Unfortunately that was the truth.

“You kind of glossed over any semblance of nuance there, but... yes, essentially.” 

“Regardless of whether we signed up for this mess, at least we’ve got a common cause. So, what’s the plan?” 

“Hariette’s out there right this second getting things ready so we can get to work.” Xiera replied before I could. Speaking of, she appeared suddenly.

“Hello again, everyone.” 

“Welcome back, Hariette. How did it go?” 

“I was able to get hold of five of the six Anima Threads binding this world together.” Five of six? What of the last?

“And the last?” I asked, she shook her head.

“Even with all my power, I cannot meddle with the final one. It appears we’ll need to go there directly and drive a linchpin into the ground.” Why was the final one so stubborn?

“I have a baaad feeling about this.” Xiera said.

“As do I.” I agreed, there was that feeling that said we were going to be facing a heck of a fight...

“What a coincidence, fairy. I was just thinking the same thing.” Margareta said.

“The site of the Black Cocoon?” I asked, it was the only place I could think of that might be beyond her...

“It’s just as you suspect-- that hive of evil. The place where the Black Cocoon emerged.” Grand. Just grand.

“Elmir twisted it to suit his own ends because it was at the heart of the Anima Thread, and was built as a place of healing. He wanted that power. And yet, it remains off limits even to a person with my divine authority.” There was no choice, it seems I would have to dive onto that battle ground again.

“Which means that we have to get the enemies out of the way ourselves so that we can reach the center, right?” Xiera asked.

“We just finished doing exactly that.” Margareta replied. Risa giggled.

“Plunging into a sea of baddies are we? Does this mean what I think, hope and pray it means? Do I  _ really _ get to pump clip after clip after clip into baddie after baddie after baddie!? Oh, I can’t wait one single solitary second! It’s time for the slaughter show, and we’ll have the best seats in the house!” I wanted to face palm. 

“Hey, fairy. She’s, uh, on our side... right? She’s not going to suddenly decide she wants to shoot us instead, is she?” Margareta seemed unnerved by Risa. I didn’t blame her, Risa did that to most. 

“Welll...” I didn’t blame Xiera, there wasn’t any guarantee Risa  _ wouldn’t _ turn on us just for her own amusement.

“If you’re trying to make me MORE nervous, it’s working!” 

“Oh, you don’t need to worry. What’s a stray bullet or three between friends, am I right?” Risa piped in.  _ You are not helping Risa. _

“It’s not a “stray bullet” and we’re not friends if you’re doing it on purpose, for the record!” Margareta shot back.

“Ugh, now I’m even more freaked out! I should’ve just called the Sword Maiden back from Weyland! Rrrgh! Okay, deep breaths! If it must be done, then so be it! Her Holiness the Divine Queen rides now! Make ready!” While things were being prepared for us to take off for our destination, Xiera noticed something.

“Speaking of which: look, Maggie. Isn’t this place the original Cuento Castle? What happened to the Epyk Palace?”

“Huh? The palace is where I live. It was made specially for me, after all.” I wondered what Xiera was talking about as well, the two of us puzzled at what Xiera was getting at here.

“I see... So that means we’re coming to Cuento Castle just to relax, then?” 

“Well, yes. This is also my castle.” 

“What?” I sorta got it, but I wasn’t sure Xiera did.

“Whaddaya mean!? I am the Divine Queen of the Sacred Magical Kingdom of Epykuento! Is it so hard to believe!?”  _ I guess Xiera forgot about that... _ I thought, trying not to laugh in my amusement.

“For someone like me, having a castle AND a palace is the bare minimum.”

“Maggie, since annexing Cuento, you definitely have turned the vanity dial up a notch... Well, it’s your prerogative.” 

“Cut it out, would you!? It’s MY kingdom, so it goes without saying that the castle and everything in it is mine!”  _ Ho boy... the politics of royalty. Glad I’m not royalty. _

“So what are you going to do about moving it? It’s a pretty long distance, right?” Who said anything about moving anything???

“With the power of the Sword Maiden, we’ll have it taken care of lickety-split!” I nearly had to face palm at that.

“Use that ancient power for something so trivial!?” I had to agree, but the divine queen didn’t see it that way, of course.

“I don’t really know much about the Crimson Fellwyrm or whatever, but if we don’t use her power, the castle will be useless anyway.” Right... no one told her the castle sat on the seal?

“... It’s nice that Alis has been so forgiving.” I couldn’t disagree there.

“Well, even though the two kingdoms are now one, culturally and environmentally they’re completely different. When you suddenly merge the two, you expect there to be some disruption, even among the common citizen. That’s why I’ve been going back and forth between the two to hear what everyone has to say. It’s the most prudent course of action.” I nodded in agreement.

“The Sword Maiden knows that, and has been kind enough to lend a hand.” 

“Well, you do have a point there...” 

“Heehee, you aren’t starting to actually RESPECT a scoundrel like me, are you? Not that I’m complaining, mind you!” She teased Xiera. 

“Maggie... You really are starting to act like a real ruler of a real kingdom.” I wasn’t sure Margareta took that so kindly.

“And you are starting to act like a real pain in the rear!” Yup... definitely not kindly.

  
  


Once we were near the place that was the edge of what had been Cuento, we were sent across the lake, two knights rowing us there.

“So, Hariette, just to make sure-- the place all those enemies are swarming out of is the place we want, right?” 

“Right. That is where the heart of the Anima Thread lies.” I looked over and nearly sighed. The description from Margareta wasn’t wrong. That was our destination.

“We have a visual on the enemy. They certainly seem to be taking a defensive formation to guard the Anima Thread.” Xiera commented. 

“I supposed we wouldn’t have much hope of sneaking through a wide-open space like this.” Risa added.

“Which means our only option seems to be chagrin in head-on. HeeHEEhehehe!”

“Do I want to ask why you’re so pleased by that idea?” Margareta asked with some uneasiness.

“Risa is right. We have no choice but to break through their vanguard. Guardian, would you do the honors?” I nodded. 

“Movement in the enemy ranks! Looks like they’ve noticed us!” 

“Alright, heads up! Rise and shine!” Risa called enthusiastically. We headed straight for the enemy. There were luminmechs and supernaturals along the way. It wasn’t an easy fight to deal with, in the end, with a larger luminmech standing between us and our destination, I called upon the power of Apprentice to decimate the luminmech and the supernatural boss that stood between us. It wasn’t over yet, however. As we ran forward, we found ourselves facing Varuna who was standing between us... and now it seems we would need to plow him as well. Margareta was confused about all of this and she was not happy with Varuna for his lies. Strong as he was, he was no match for our combined power. It seems, however he seemed to wish to destroy the very thing we sought, but I wasn’t going to let him, I blocked his blow and Hariette blasted him back, ending him and stopping his plan. Still, it was not a battle we wished to fight. This was not a heartless being we had to end... but that of someone who did not know what was right or wrong... I felt no satisfaction with his departure. It was not like with Mitra. I hoped that in the next life he would gain what he had lost in this life.

I could only watch as Hariette began to activate the magic there of the Anima Thread, setting our plan into action. With the photoner’s powers now sealed, it was up to me to return back to Oracle and finish this fight once and for all. I wasn’t sure how my original plan would fit in, if it would. I had a feeling it might not be needed, for now though, Risa, Xiera and I returned to the ship. I had some down time on my hands now, before what would be a final confrontation. I was restless and I did not fully understand why. I should be happy that all of this was about to be over, that at least that I would finally fulfill the promise that I had set out to fulfil. One final battle and I would take Shiva down with me. I had to make sure that, in the end, no matter what happened during the battle, that I would be there to muster up the power that would be needed to take Shiva with me... out of the reach of those I had promised to protect. I stood on the tiny balcony, staring out at the city miles away that held the civilian part of the ship. A part I didn’t really get to see or talk to... it seemed so far out of reach, just like the dreams I held inside. The dreams of returning to the life I had known and the love... the happiness... It wasn’t until I felt something wet hit my hand that I realized I’d begun to cry. 

I understood Shiva more than anyone could... because just like her, I was a sacrificial lamb. A soul that would be offered up in exchange for the lives of millions... lives who did not know me. Who would never know me... who only knew a name that wasn’t even mine. The legacy that I would leave was in a world I could no longer touch... and I realized that life, what truly made me happy and what I needed to be happy... was gone forever. I would never know love again. I would die for a war that wasn’t mine... I was nobody and I would remain that way even after my death. My life had no meaning because this whole thing... it wasn’t my legacy. It belonged to Kaori... and I still hadn’t told Matoi what I knew. I had died in my world and replaced Kaori who had died in this one... I was almost certain of it. I could only weep all the more knowing that I was leaving behind someone who would mourn the loss of a friend, but that friend wasn’t me. Matoi didn’t know me. No one did. I was going to die, again, but this time... instead of surrounded by love... it would be surrounded by hate. I could do nothing to stop it. I heard nothing from those who were inside me... perhaps they understood - in a way - why I broke down. I wasn’t scared. I was just someone who had no one. 

I had been holding back my pain with all that had happened. All that I had been through and all that was to still come. Once I began to cry I could do nothing but until I could not cry any more and fell into exhaustion instead. There was no escape from the misery when I woke, I felt more exhausted than when I had fallen asleep. This world... it was such a fantastic place... full of wonder and light... the war aside. The people genuinely looked out for one another because anything but peace wasn’t an option. Everywhere I looked there was something wondrous to behold or something beautiful... something fascinating. I was in a world where the impossible was possible and despite the tragedy of the war that had befallen the fleet, they still stood strong against an enemy they had fought tirelessly for generations. Even when the odds had seemed stacked against them. Somehow they had persevered. They still lived on and continued to exist to fight the enemy. No matter how big the threat or how many times it kept coming back, they still fought, lived and died for a cause that was bigger than they were. My time, in this wondrous, fantastic place... was coming to an end. There was still so much I wanted to do. So many battles I wanted to fight... friends I could have made... but no. I wasn’t here to make friends. I wasn’t here to make a life. I was just here for a job. Because of a promise. Because I cared about those who didn’t even know my name nor cared to know it. I would die in this war, and there would be no one to remember me. To know me, like they had known my avatar. The comfort of completing her legacy was a very small one in the scope of things. 

This was my curse. It seemed that even though I had changed bodies, the curse of my emotions had carried over with my soul. Condemning me to this misery. The same misery that had taken someone else’s tragedy to shake me out of... a misery that I knew would probably swallow me whole once more. Not that it mattered what I felt. What I thought. In the end, nothing mattered for me except the plan. What I had to do in order to save everyone. To save lives who were the hope for the future. I knew Xiao would probably call me to the bridge before this final fight and we’d have one last conversation probably. Alma might be there... Matoi probably would be and Xiera for sure. Individuals who were strong and who moved on quickly when someone was gone. Friends, family... it didn’t matter. They didn’t form bonds as deeply as I did... or perhaps the bonds they had weren just different. I don’t really know. In the end, it won’t really matter. What am I to them but a soul that was passing through? That’s right... I was just a lost soul that was pulled into another world, another universe, after losing everything dear to me. I didn’t belong here. I never had. I never would. I was a stranger in strange lands. An anomaly. A glitch in some grand design. 

Just like the lyrics to a song I remembered from days gone by... in the end, it doesn’t even matter. My life had no more meaning.  _ Heh, that’s a laugh. This life I have now isn’t life... it was never meant to be mine. I’m just a puppeteer now who is using the final bits of a puppet’s time to achieve something that I will never get to enjoy... And to think people from my world would think this sort of sacrifice is noble... there’s no honor in death. No nobility in sacrifice. It is just what it is. I will join the faceless and be forgotten. No... that’s not true... I already have been. I am no one at all. Just a faceless, nameless soul whose soul purpose is to die again... how many times will I die? Is this the last time or the first of many in eternal damnation? This has to be hell... to live in a place of beauty where there is a chance of everything I had only to have it ripped away.... yes. Surely this is my personal damnation for a lack of my faith in life. I fell so short that I am doomed to this existence. Will I lose myself? Will I become a monster along the way? Will I even remember each one or will they just blur together? Will I forget my time here when I move on to the next? Surely this is my eternal punishment... forever apart from the very thing that ever gave me happiness... friends, family... and I can do nothing...  _

_ I am nothing... I am no one... I made a promise though... to someone. I will keep that promise and however many more I will make in this eternal damnation. I will not forget to keep my word... even if I have lost everything. I am me. I only have one hope left now... that I am making a difference. That life will go on without me. That it will not be nothing... no, I have a feeling that it’s not for nothing... I can’t remember it, but I almost can... there was a future for these lives. A future I must protect.... So it’s not in vain. My sacrifice means something... in the end. So then, I am not meaningless entirely, but I am a nobody. I will never see the light at the end of the tunnel again. I must only trust that things will be alright. Somehow and that when my time here ends... they will live on. That will be my legacy... even if no one ever knows it. I... I cannot be happy with this, but I have no choice. The choice was made for me. I will suffer eternity through this... but so be it. If my hell brings happiness to someone... then... it is worth it. _

I felt myself begin to weep all over again, but in my sadness was a faint glimmer of hope. Hope of a better tomorrow for souls that could still be saved... that could still have the joy and happiness that I am being deprived of. Somehow I would go on and complete this. I would fulfill this mission. I wiped away what remained of her tears and picked herself up, changing back into a dress of pinks, whites and browns. It was going to be the month of love soon... in only another week... it was also the month she had been born into. Earth still called it Valentine’s Day, but on the ship they called it the Festival of Sweets. I close my eyes and think back to my time with my husband, the joy we shared and the brown eyes that seemed to be filled with love regardless of whether it was also with a hint of mischief or even just an every day smile. Determined to do what I could to prepare for the final showdown... I set out from my quarters. There was no point resting there and it was only a place of solitude for my tears. I would not cry anymore. Not until after this was finished anyway. I would not say goodbye. I would simply do what was needed and slip away into the shadows. Xia, dressed in a brown and white frilled dress had holiday quests, there was even a trio of new ‘players’ hanging around in the Shopping Plaza with quests. Earthlings who played PSO2 and still didn’t realize it was a real world even after the Desu incident.

I’m not really sure how they AREN’T aware that the world around them is real. I just know that they reminded me about what Pati and Tia decided to do in order to troll our Earth visitors... by saying and doing things that they thought that NPCs would say or do. I am not sure if their plan is working or not, to be honest, I haven’t seen them try it. I suppose this is their form of entertainment though. I’m sure they’ve likely fooled Mitarashi, Ichika and Tetra at the very least... those are the three Earth visitors. For some reason they decided that they’d pretend they were literally part of ‘the game’ - meaning this world - and hand out client requests like other ARKS sometimes did when they needed something done they couldn’t really do themselves. Which reminds me, Hans can do all those quests now in most of the areas he has client quests in, he just likes handing them out now to new ARKS members to do in order to help them build up their confidence and experience in the field... and it does seem to work. He’s not the only one who does that. Now that I think of it, honestly, there’s a whole host of ARKS operatives who do it. Afin, Chrotos, Lavere... just to name a few really. I’m not sure why I didn’t notice this before... or maybe I did but I hadn’t quite taken as much note of it as I probably should have. Perhaps it was this simple element that had drawn my interest to the world at first, when it had just been a game. Just a game... heh, right. Who was I kidding? Any game that I got into was really never ‘just a game’ for me. It was something that changed me in some way or another. Books and music were no different. I had always been a rather sensitive soul and no matter how hard I tried to make myself have defenses against something that could hurt... it still managed to hurt me some how. Always managing to strike the moment there was even the tiniest bit of a crack in my defenses.

I had thought about this before, mostly in just passing of course; but now that I have time to really think about it... I think that is why this type of hell makes me suffer. Because even before I knew it for what it truly was... before I realized what was truly going on... I had let this place into my heart. Allowed the possibilities that it could have ensnared me. I had begun to get used to the idea of living here. After all, I had met someone just like me who had planted the idea in my head that things weren’t so bad... even if they were tough to adjust to. I can’t help but wonder what brought my friend here. Did Wil also die? If so... what was the cause? I can only imagine that a place like this, with all its wonder, beauty and opportunities to start anew had become a paradise for someone like him. He had the sort of will and drive to live in a world like this and to forge ahead no matter the obstacle. His fiancé was a lucky woman indeed. He had found happiness here, despite his loss. I don’t think he forgot what he lost, but he has probably been here so long that the pain of the loss has long since faded and been replaced by acceptance and becoming the operative he is now. He is a fine operative. A very generous and kind soul and I imagine that, if I had the time to get to know him better, we could be very close friends. Alas, fate is not so kind. I find it curious that his fiancé seems to look like me and share the name of my avatar. 

An odd coincidence really, still, with so many playing it was bound to happen... and I recalled once running into another player who - despite being very different from me and such - also had called herself Kaori. So what was one more? However unlikely it was that she resembled my avatar. It was not like the appearance I had chosen for my avatar was unique really. Any number of players probably could have chosen the same hairstyle, eye color and been a Summoner. There were a finite choice of colors and styles so while the number might be a bit high in terms of how likely it was, it was still not impossible. Although, I found it as strange as he did that he seemed reluctant to speak the name of the woman who had enraptured him. Well, no matter. Odd as it might have been it really didn’t mean anything. At least... it shouldn’t have. I admit that I felt pain I should not when I had heard he had a girlfriend and was proposing to her on the day I chose to visit. I still feel it, when I think about it. A pain I shouldn’t feel at all for a stranger I haven’t even really gotten to know. I mean, sure he was attractive as far as men go I guess, but I’ve never been a good judge of appearances as they’re fleeting anyway so what does it matter? It was the soul behind those sapphire eyes and the friendly smile that was where the true beauty lay. I wonder if this is part of my punishment too... that I am to make such connections to another soul, something so deep it defies logic, before I am torn from that world. A cruel trick of fate I should say. 


	12. Shiva

“Oh, it’s you. What can I do for you Guardian?” Ludmila said when she spotted me. Her golden amber eyes always seemed to have that spark of high intelligence when I saw her. I could only wonder why she had blue hair, but shook the thoughts off.

“I need you to look into something for me.” 

“Sure, what is it?” 

“I was wondering what you could tell me about this.” I handed over a small device, one that had only been seen by a few... the Divergence Matrix.

“Hmm, I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“It’s the Divergence Matrix. I’ve had it with me for a while. Xion gave it to me in order to carry out her wishes and change some things that happened.”

“Whoa... fascinating. So this helps you travel through the very fabric of time itself?” 

“More or less, the problem is I can’t really read this thing. Originally I had Xion and Xiao to help, but he’s busy so I thought you could maybe help me out, being that you’re a Hi Cast and might know more about this than me.” She was looking over the device, it looked mostly like an ordinary tablet, but the screen and its functions were far from the same.

“Hmmm, I see... so then this is... and...” She muttered, rambling to herself. I just waited patiently. After a long moment she looked up again.

“Sorry, this is just so fascinating! So if you can travel through time then we can find a way to beat Shiva for good!” 

“That’s the idea.”

“So, then what’s the plan and how can I help?” 

“I just need this device to boost my ability to travel is all. Do you think you can make that possible?” 

“Hmm, well that could take some time, but sure.” 

“Also, try to make it simple to use, I’m not exactly an expert like you are.” 

“Yeah, I can do that.”

“I leave it to you then. Also this is a top secret project so no one is to know this is even here okay?” 

“Absolutely!” I nodded and waved, leaving her to her work. I got back to my quarters in time to feel the familiar tug that let me know the collective wanted to speak with me. I wondered what it was they wanted. I closed my eyes and focused inward, I saw that it was Luther and that he seemed to be waiting for me by himself.

“What is it that you’re up to? I know that device is capable of things I don’t fully understand, but to think that you will use it to travel back in time. What will you do?” 

“It’s not complicated Luther. I’m going to take Shiva back in time with me, to the point I entered this world and pull her back to the other side.” 

“And how do you propose to do this?”

“With the barrier in place, I’ll have a chance to get close to her. With the boost from the Divergence Matrix I’ll have enough energy to do more than just go back in time and create a second path, but to take her back with me and cross our present selves into the other side. That’s the idea anyway, if I fail, nothing will change and I will have to try something else, but if I succeed then the threat will be gone forever.” 

“This idea of yours has some flaws though, you’re banking on a device you aren’t sure of. Still, there is sound logic in this place and while we will be erased once we cross that plane, it is a necessary sacrifice.” 

“I’m afraid so. I believe it will likely mean the end of us all honestly because I am bound to this form by photons. Without them, in my world, this body will cease to live. I replaced Kaori so that I could achieve this goal. That I could rid the world you knew of that threat.”

“And yet you don’t want to.” I shook my head.

“It’s not that. I just wish that I had the freedom to live there. To have a second chance at life, maybe, like Wil. It wasn’t meant to be though. Humans are strange creatures... not so unlike the photoners in that there are times we want something we cannot have. Were never meant to have.” 

“I see.”

"Life isn't always fair, but I made a promise and I will keep it."

"Seems I am not the only one who has something to say." I turned from him as he walked off and came face to face with my doppelganger. I frowned slightly.

"Alright Persona, what is this?"

"Truth, of what might have been. If you continue down this path you will lose it all."

"You're wasting your time. I have already lost it all."

“Have you?” 

“Yes. I didn’t really have time to make any real friends here or anything else and my time is coming to an end.” 

“Is this truly how you feel?” 

“It doesn’t matter what I feel. I was brought here for one purpose and I will fulfill the promise I have made, but it will cast me back into death’s embrace again. Will it not?” Persona was silent. 

“I do not know.” Was the reply after a long moment.

“I cannot be certain, but since it was the moment of my death that brought me here then I believe I have nothing to return to. Rather, whatever happens next will be what was supposed to happen before my soul was stationed here.” 

“You know what this was then... and yet, you still insist on the plan?” 

“What other course is there? I am damned. That is all that awaits me.” Persona had no answer to that then. 

“You realize the truth, don’t you?”

“What truth? That I have nothing?” 

“The truth of what lies in front of you. Of what you have been told.” 

“What are you getting at?” 

“I am you. You are me. I am her. You are her. She is you. We cannot be separated.” I was silent a long moment as I considered what the words might mean.

“Are you trying to tell me you’re the one Wil proposed to?” I asked after a long silence.

“I am.” 

“I see... this... I don’t know how to take this. Except that I hope you will be good to him.” 

“If you continue this path, I won’t be able to.” 

“I can’t stay here though, you know this. I must move on into the next life. I will find a way... no... I take that back... I KNOW there is a way.” 

“Then you would sacrifice yourself for me as well? You are so foolish.” 

“I will not tear away his happiness because you decided you wanted to mess around. The fool here, Persona, is you.”

“I did it for you!” 

“Please, don’t lie. We both know the truth here. You’re a person I could never be and I am who you will never be. Don’t belittle me. Don’t you dare stand there and sully us further! You know damn well what must be done and knowing he is happy is enough. It will have to be enough...” My voice broke near the end.

“I shouldn’t feel so strongly for someone I have only met twice... but I do... and you stole from me what might have been. You will have to live with that now. That is your burden to bear, knowing that what you feel is what I feel now... and what I shall die feeling. That I cannot escape the pain.” 

“Then you admit it.”

“I know the truth. I know my fate. I hope this was worth it for you, Kaori.” I turned away and opened my eyes, I was done. Persona could think what she liked... for now, I would simply weep for my loss. For what may have been but had been stolen away. To keep anyone from knowing what I was up to I stayed locked away in my quarters. Never leaving for any reason and locking them against anyone else. I had an automated message set up on my tablet now, any messages I got simply stated that I was busy. The only one I answered personally though after I saw it was one from Ludmila regarding the Divergence Matrix. She wanted to see me about ‘the project’ as she put it, when I had some time. I met with her again at an hour when most others would be asleep.

“So, I think this will work.” She said when she saw me, handing the device back.

“It’s only good once though. Afterwards the systems will overload and it will become useless for at least a day.” 

“I only need it to work once. Thank you for this.” I said as I tucked it away. She nodded.

“You look like you haven’t been resting well.” 

“Stress. Once this is all over I’ll be able to sleep better.”

“All of us will.” 

“That’s the idea. Have a good evening.” She nodded, waving absentmindedly as she was distracted by some other project as I headed back to my room. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, but it didn’t matter. I had only to wait. Waiting was the hardest part of anything. I took care of myself as best as I could, pushing myself to be as normal as possible because I would need it.

As expected, the call came to join them at the bridge and I answered the call with Matoi; Xiao, Xiera and Ulku were there. The strategy that was laid out was one that I expected... Matoi and I were to head straight to Shiva... everyone else was a diversion. It was the only logical strategy with ARKS being outnumbered. I didn’t like what I was being asked to do though... to ignore fellow operatives if they were in need... I would have to stay the course to cut through to Shiva, even so. I had to ask.

“Is this an order?” 

“Trust me. I know full well you two would never agree to this willing. And you are our Guardians, after all. No one in this fleet could give you orders.” Well... that wasn’t entirely true, but I understood what he was trying to say.

“But keep this in mind: If we lose here, it means the end of... well, everything. If Shiva lives, our future dies. It’s in your hands, Guardians.” Matoi and I looked at one another and nodded, but I knew what this meant. My plan was to be put into place. It was, ultimately up to me and I was determined to not fail them. It did not surprise me that the barrier wasn’t as successful as we had hoped. Shiva was one with The Profound Darkness after all, but even as she taunted us with visions of our friends.... Well... Matoi’s friends, I turned from the visions to stare at Shiva.

“Oh? Still going to rush to your death are you?”

“To ours.” I replied and rushed forward.

“What? Wait!” Matoi cried but I didn’t hear her as I leapt forward, the device in my hand now.

“What is-” Shiva asked as I hit her barrier straight on, dropping my weapon only to grab her with my now empty hand and then in that instant the two of us were gone the moment I hit the switch. Time swirling around us as I yanked her through time. I could feel the Dark Falz collective and Persona in me... I smiled and sent to Persona all the photons I had just before I entered the second portal... 

“What do you hope to accomplish Guardian? You cannot defeat me with raw power.”

“It’s not raw power I’m after.” I replied as everything shifted and we landed hard on a grassy plain that was covered in snow.. It was foreign to her, but seeing it made me smile.

“It matters not, I will end you!” She got to her feet and held out her hand, but nothing happened.

“What? What is...”

“Welcome to my world Shiva... where photons don’t exist and neither does The Profound Darkness... except in a video game. You’re mortal now. Good luck figuring out how you’re going to survive in an unforgiving world. Now you’re the anomaly.” I chuckled. I didn’t have the strength to get up.

“You... what about you? You ... came from here? How is this possible?!” 

“Xion.” Was all I said as the device rolled from my hand as I lost my grip on it.

“The Divergence Matrix, but it wasn’t supposed to do this! What have you done?!” 

“Saved them from you. It was all I could do. What I was meant to do... even if, in the end, I lose the last thing I have... again.” I chuckled as I saw Shiva trying to sort through everything. Confused and alone. There was just the two of us. The Dark Falz who had kept me company were no more... we had played our part and were erased now from the universe. From life. Still I smiled and closed my eyes. The coolness of the snow beneath me was a comfort of my childhood; even as I felt myself slipping away I didn’t want to go. I never had wanted to go, but there was nothing more for me. This was the end of my life... again. 


	13. Epilogue

There was silence on the bridge, even while all around the fleet there were cheers on the ship. Only three individuals stood on the bridge now... Matoi, Xiao and Xierra. The two were trying to comfort Matoi as best as they could... to reassure her, but no one had considered this option. No one would have thought it was possible and only a few knew what had actually taken place there in the Mothership. Without Shiva, the entire photoner fleet had simply ceased to function and became nothing more than space junk. 

  
  
  


Wilhelm came back from the battle, tired, but he’d survived and Kaori was with him. He noticed though he had a message on his tablet. It was from the Guardian. He wondered what she could want as he opened the message:

  
  


Dear Wilhelm,

If you’re reading this right now then my plan has worked. Everything is as it should be. However, this will be the last time you hear from me. I’m taking her with me. Back to a world where we came from. The world without photons... it’s the best option really and the only way to be certain she will never be a threat ever again. It won’t solve the issue with falspawn, but at least this way The Profound Darkness is truly gone. It can’t come back ever again... and you have your future to look forward to.

I wish you and Kaori a happy life. Stay just as you are Wil. You were my reason to fight, just as you are her reason now. Farewell my friend.

K

Kaori stood behind him as he read the message. The diamond ring gently glistened in the evening light.

  
  
  


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  


“That can’t be all there is to the story though grandma!”

“No, you’re right my dear. For not long after that, there was peace and into that peace was born a child. This baby girl, on Kaori’s insistence, was given the name that was the Guardian’s true name. To honor her sacrifice.”

“What name was that?” The young child asked, they had silvery eyes and blonde hair.

“You will have to ask your mother, but know that this secret is for family alone.”

“Does grandpa Wil know?”

“He does, just as I know and your mother and father know. It is a family secret that we have kept and now I have passed on to you two to keep.” The twin boy and girl looked at each other and giggled.

“I’m gonna go ask mom!” The boy said and got up, running off with the girl behind him calling.

“Wait for me! I want to ask too!” There was a soft chuckle from the elderly woman, her silvery eyes watching the two run off from the living room foyer of the castle to find their mother to learn what the true name of the Guardian had been... 


End file.
